Published: May 07, 2009 11:29 pm      

A story of getting even with a squirrel

Every hunter has had his or her presence announced to every living creature in the woods by a barking squirrel upon entering a pristine spot with expectations of slipping up on a deer or some other game animal. Usually it is right after you have carefully chosen each foot placement and avoided snapping a single stick or shuffled a single leaf for a hundred yards and are feeling proud of your skill at arriving at your spot in total silence.

The squirrel blows your whole stalk.  And your thoughts, and sometimes verbalizations, directed at the little rodent are always uncomplimentary and often profane.

Well, in the big western mountains where huge bull elk thrive, there is a squirrel endowed with a raspy bark whose volume matches the size of the bigger game animals. It is as if the Creator, in the interest of equality and mindful of our gray squirrels' role of alerting whitetails, established a similar alarmist for mountain-elk, expanding the squirrels noise- making capability to match the size of mountain game.

Folks, the mountain homes of elk and mule deer and bear and cougars are quiet. They are remote from civilization because the millions of acres are managed by federal agencies that allow no dwellings or other attractors of people. It is so quiet in those spruce and fir slopes that you can hear your heart beat in your ears.



On edge



Match this silence with a dose of anticipation when searching for big game and your senses are keyed as high as the little E string on your guitar. Your footfalls are on centuries of accumulated conifer needles, quieter than goose down. The pine squirrel gives no warning with a puny whine like the gray squirrel sometimes does. His first blast will curl your hair and I am certain many hunters have fired their piece in an involuntary reflex.   

We call this mountain squirrel a pine squirrel, though I have never seen one in any tree except fir and spruce. Outdoor writer Robert P. Anderson has a more complete name for this squirrel — "That Mouthy Little Expletive of a Pine Squirrel."

In Anderson's article in an issue of "Bugle," the magazine of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, he bemoans the encounters he has had with this pestiferous little loudmouth. It is a journal of quiet moments abruptly interrupted. But happily his article is also a story of revenge. He paid one of the nosy little critters back for all the misdeeds of his brothers. In so doing, the writer got even for all of us who have stalked the mountains and had our daily hunts disrupted by this inconsiderate little beast.

Here is how one diminutive pine squirrel got his comeuppance. Anderson found a slender saddle between an elk bedding ground amid thick firs and a patch of mountain mahogany, a favorite browse plant. A natural crossing lay on the ridge top where the writer sneaked in at daylight and took a stand, sitting snugly against a tree. His approach was silenced by four inches of fresh, light snow.

Pine squirrels always find you, no matter your concealment, and begin their deafening barking; a raspy whistle that grates on your nerves after their initial blast scares the starch out of you. But no squirrel had arrived for a full five minutes and it began to snow those big goose-feather snowflakes. The snow intensified until Anderson said, "I couldn't have seen a bull elephant at fifty feet."

He snuggled up tight against the tree trunk, well hidden within its low-lying branches. He would enjoy the scene and wait out the storm. Suddenly he caught movement straight ahead and spotted a pine squirrel headed his way on the ground. The squirrel would almost bury itself in the fresh snow with each leap that brought it toward the tree under which Anderson had taken a stand with his legs parted, knees slightly bent and his rifle across his lap.



Repayment plan



On came the squirrel, its eyes blurred by the falling snow, thus unaware of Anderson’s status as a human being. Anderson formulated a plan. "It was like a slowed-down hunting video; only instead of a bull elk coming closer it was a leering, tail-jerking, sputtery-mouthed pine squirrel." The hunter's plan became clear to him. Although he realized a bull elk might be approaching, nothing else in the world mattered but carrying out his plan.

"My gloved hands rested on my rifle," wrote Anderson. "The squirrel's course was bringing him right between my feet. He was at my boot-toes when I made my black-gloved hands into claws, thrust them right in his face and screamed, AAARRGGGGHHH!"

According to the writer, the squirrel's first moves after the scream resembled those of a break-dancer. 'I don't know where that squirrel went after getting its bearings. I sincerely hope it was scared into impotency," he writes.

Likewise for me and for the thousands of mountain hunters who have suffered the transgressions of that “Mouthy Little Expletive of a Pine Squirrel.”