#gray squirrels

[antiqueanimals]

Florida Wildlife; vol. 10, no. 10. March, 1957. Illustration by Wallace Hughes.

Internet Archive

[alcnfr]

A few Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) munching around the feedlot this AM...

[trauma-tits]

The heated outdoor water bowl gets a lot of visitors. You can see how small the young squirrel is compared to the older squirrels in the bottom images.

[woodsfae]

I saw these baby squirrels with their Ma out on my walk around the neighborhood today.

Ma Squirrel hissed and barked till we went away. Sorry, Ma.

05/05/2024

[rachelsrandomsphotos]

Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)

Taken at Gleason Park in Indian Harbour Beach, FL

[geopsych]

Now famous among squirrels for its feats of daring! (This morning in the garden—probably a Coopers hawk.)

[chasingrainbowsforever]

"Adorable Squirrel Sitting on a Tree Branch” ~ By Janine Collins

[unbridleddiscoveries]

Eastern gray squirrel

[2birds1pencil]

❤️🫂

[critter-creature-or-beast]

Submitted for classification by @kenidur1561

"Have YOU been classified yet?"

[akiacia]

gummies

[antiqueanimals]

Wildlife in North Carolina. February 1982. Illustration by Duane Raver Jr.

Internet Archive

[alcnfr]

Some of the assorted Yardlife from today.

[trauma-tits]

[awkward-parabuteo]

Catch of the day

[bonefall]

Bit of a random one but rereading the parable of the squirrels got me curious: how would clan cats (or just thunderclan in particular) view black/melanistic squirrels? Have any of them ever seen one? Im not sure how common they are in the uk, but i know they can be relatively prevalent in areas that have them sometimes

Black squirrels are nothing more than a simple morph! They get common in areas that have melanistic genes present as a result of simple genetic drift, though I've seen it proposed that black fur is an advantage in cold areas.

The gene is rare in the populations the Warriors come across, so they almost never see it. In spite of ShadowClan's unwillingness to control the gray squirrel population, ThunderClan is so aggressive about it that the pool stays shallow. Red Squirrels (pishkaf) do not have this gene. Only Gray Squirrels (chakchak) do.

So every time a black squirrel manages to occur, it's treated like a dire omen. Even ShadowClan takes it seriously.

Black as a color is associated with day and night cycles, because of Moon Shadow, Sun Shadow, and Shadowstar. Gray Squirrels are associated with war and benefit at the suffering of others. These things together herald great upheaval-- so cataclysmic that it would likely not be an "honorable conflict."

If you came to your Cleric with this omen, they would be struck with a look of terrible alarm. They'd be interested in its context, what it was doing, if it was eating anything, what its surroundings looked like. Someone like BB!Runningnose, interested in supporting Brokenstar's ambitions, might spin it as a positive sign.

Most Clerics would announce that the squirrel needs to be killed IMMEDIATELY, and launch a massive hunt to destroy it. What would come next would likely depend on the culture of the time, but for the most part I can imagine some sort of mass "purification" ritual. The whole Clan trying to identify how they can avoid the cataclysm, one of the few times where they see a glorious war as a bad thing.

The cat who kills the squirrel would likely earn an Honor Title. It's also very likely that the body of the animal is treated as a very powerful material-- burned to ash to prevent its use in forbidden magic or carefully preserved and made into something special, no in-between.

(Thinking about it... thanks for the idea I'll totally do this for Brokenstar's Cataclysm lmao. The sinew of the black squirrel is probably used to re-string Runny's acorn necklace.)