17 years with a wild Fox Squirrel friend.

[earlfor]

A story evolved from another thread when I commented I had a Florida Fox squirrel that would come when I called, that would sit in my hand and let me play with her.

http://www.wildflorida.com/wildlife/mammals/images/Foxsquirrel463.jpg

We met when I was building my house in Naples, Fl in 1983. After the foundation had been poured, the first thing I did was build a picnic table in the side yard, so I would have a place to sit and have lunch and take a break from working. Shortly after building the table, I was sitting there on Saturday morning having coffee and doughnuts before starting work. A fox squirrel came down a pine tree and approached the doughnut box but would not come closer than about 6 feet. I moved the box to the far end of the table and got up and moved a few feet in the opposite direction. Foxy as I later would call her, hopped onto the table, browsed through the doughnuts, selected a chocolate cake one, and took it up the tree where she sat happily munching away. She was very young then, perhaps 2 years old and still not completely filled out, but she was still 20 inches or so long and about 2 1/2 pounds, easily three or four times the size of a grey squirrel.
Whenever she saw me sit at the table, she would come and wait to see what we were having that day.

[Buffalo Bill]

Wow, I thought they only lived like 2 years?
Cool.

[bonanzadave]

Huh !

Thats an old squirrel. Did she ever build a nest or have babies ? Any predators ? Hawks, owls ? Cats ?

[earlfor]

It took me 2 years to build the house and she came around most days during that time. At first, she would not approach the table if I was sitting at it. I had to place a munchie on the table and then move away for her to come take it. Each week, I stood a little closer to the table. If she didn't come, I stepped back some. Months passed before I could sit at the table, place a peanut on the end of the table six feet away and she was confident enough to hop on the table and take it with me sitting there. Inches at a time, I moved the peanut closer to where I sat. A couple more months and she would come within a foot of me to get food. I still could not reach out with a nut and have her take it from me. She did not want to risk being within my reach. I figured if she would not accept my reaching to her, I would try getting her to reach out to me. I put my arm on the table and placed the peanut behind my elbow, away from my hand and she took it.

Another month passed and I was placing the peanut next to my elbow and she would come get it. I still could not reach towards her without her backing up, so the next step was to lay my arm across the table and put the peanut on the inside side of my arm so that she had to step over my arm to get the nut. That took a week or so. LOL After that, I put my arm on the table and placed the nut on my arm. Then it was only a short step before she would take the nut off my hand and eventually from between my fingers. That was the first six months of progress. Attempting to touch her at all was out of the question. I was to find that that would take far longer

[earlfor]

Wow, I thought they only lived like 2 years?
Cool.

I think fox squirrels average about 8 years or so.

[earlfor]

Huh !

Thats an old squirrel. Did she ever build a nest or have babies ? Any predators ? Hawks, owls ? Cats ?

She had a nest in a stand of trees behind the house. There were hawks and the occasional owl, but no cats.
There was one male fox squirrel for a while, but I never saw any young ones and she was never pregnant when I picked her up.

[earlfor]

An interesting fact about fox squirrels. Their ankles are double jointed and they can rotate their feet 180 degrees. They climb a tree trunk going up head first and their feet point ahead/up. But, they come down a tree head first, so to be able to hold on, they rotate their feet so that they still point up. In other words, their feet are backwards orientation as they were when going up the tree. When you see them running horizontally around a tree trunk, their feet will be pointing 90 degrees to their direction of travel and still pointing up.

[earlfor]

By the end of the first year, I was able to hold out a peanut and she would confidently walk up to my hand and take it.
the next step was to hold a nut between my fingers and then move it towards me to get her to take it while I was moving.
After that (I already have her confident enough to step over my arm), it was a short step to get her to step over my left palm while walking towards my moving right hand with the nut. Then it was stop moving the nut when she crossed my palm so that she was sitting on my hand while eating. More weeks passed as she adapted to sitting on my left palm, and eating a nut while I lightly moved one finger on my left hand, stroking her foot and leg slightly. Eventually, I was able to increase the range of motion in small increments and she slowly became acclimated to being touched. We're talking of a finger movement of about 1/4". heh

We progressed by small degrees over a long time. It was a learning and acclimation process for both of us and it required a lot of time to develop her confidence and trust. It took another three years of small steps to reach the point of being able to rub the top of her head with a finger, scratch her ears and rub her back. It took a lot of trust from her to let me do something with her with my hand out of her sight. Once she would allow me to touch her and would sit on my still hand, it took some months to get her to stay sitting on my moving hand. After that, I was able to place her on my shoulder, but it took time to get her to stay there as I walked around.

[earlfor]

I had taken the habit of calling her Foxy, so she learned that name and if she was about, would come if I called it.

After five years or so, I finally reached the point of being able to pick her up, rub her back, ears and tummy and scratch under her chin. She reached the stage of enjoying being rubbed and the attention. We learned to wrestle for peanuts. I wouldn't let go of one and neither would she. She thought it great fun. When I finally let it go, she would run around my chest about three times before stopping on my shoulder to shell and eat it. heh

I taught her to jump out of trees on top of my head. Sometimes I would not notice she was about and get a small surprise when 2 pounds landed in my hair and I felt four tiny feet and toe nails dig in to hold on. She thought that great fun too.

If she was on the ground and saw me out in the yard, she would come from behind, run up the back of my leg, over my left shoulder and hang from my shoulder with her hind feet while sticking her nose into my shirt pocket to check out the peanut supply situation. Sometimes, she would eat a couple and then take off, or just sit on my shoulder and eat them.
sometimes, she didn't really want peanuts and was there to be rubbed, tickled and played with. There were times when she just wanted the attention. By year 7, she had accepted me and we were friends. I could do anything reasonable
with only a very slight concern of a bite.

Probably the closest I came to a possible bite was one day I was standing in the back yard with her sitting on my left hand and eating nuts. A hawk landed in a tree about 50 yards away that I did not see but she did. In a fraction of a second, she went from sitting in my hand to being under my hand, feet wrapped around the edges of my hand and her head poked between my fingers looking at the hawk and snarling and growling. She was one angry squirrel and I had no idea why. There was nothing to do but wait and see what was going on. I knew it was not anything I had done and I knew she was so fast, avoiding a bite, if intended, was impossible. I truly wasn't worried though. I had her trust and by now, she had mine.

[Charlie G]

Nice story. More?

[Brendan W]

Great story. Try getting it included in the property valuation.
I was outside this morning early and one of the resident greys put in an appearance. They are fairly shy around here. Our boundary has a small river with a lot of Hazel and they regularly commute from a big stand of Scots Pine over the road at this time of year.

[steve murdoch]

Thanks for sharing that great story, Earl.

[earlfor]

Great story. Try getting it included in the property valuation.
I was outside this morning early and one of the resident greys put in an appearance. They are fairly shy around here. Our boundary has a small river with a lot of Hazel and they regularly commute from a big stand of Scots Pine over the road at this time of year.

The grey squirrels are a different personality. They're very skittish. I have them at the house I live in now and in 10 years, I have not been able to get any of them to approach. Fox squirrels are much more calm.

[earlfor]

Nice story. More?

The following years were spent building on the base we had established. It was a process of small increments chained to something already learned. Her voice recognition improved greatly and I was able to talk to her the same as I could with my dogs and she understood. It was a two way street. She made little chirps, chunks and whistle sounds indicating her approval, glee or dislike for things and she had calls when she wanted to contact other squirrels. Each squirrel had their own call sign. When they called each other, they seemed to know who had answered. I learned to recognize her call and knew when she was near, and was able to use it to call her specifically when I wanted. Hers sounded like herk-foookew, drawn out and done with a cat voice. It took some practice. LOL

[earlfor]

I was coming home from work one day and on my street, about 1/4 mile from the house, I saw a squirrel walking in the ditch along side the road. On second look, I saw it was foxy, so I stopped and got out of the pick up truck. I said hey girl and she turned around, saw it was me and came to me. I picked her up, put her on my shoulder, got back in the truck and drove her home. Once home, I walked to a tree beside the back porch that she often used to come down from the canopy to get to the house. She stepped off my shoulder onto the tree, thanked me for the lift and was on her way to her nest. heh