Last couple of days I have been hearing a lot of squirrel activity in the mornings around my home. Apart from the usual amount of squeaking and fighting, the last few days had the Indian Palm squirrels jumping to/from the window and balcony frames of my flat.
I got around to investigate the commotion in the morning and not to my surprise found they’ve been attracted by the ripening fruits of the Apple Guava tree in the backyard. There were a dozen guavas in various stages of ripening and the squirrels were having a merry time.
There is one problem with the Indian palm squirrels though. They never finish off guavas and instead gnaw just a little portion off it, before moving away to the next ripe one. Thus it is usual to see a Guava or even a Mango tree full of partially gnawed fruits. However, it does not deter us Indians from eating the fruits.
The usual practice is to slice away the partially eaten away portion of the fruit and happily munch away on the rest. In fact, during my younger days, when Indian gooseberry, mango, guava, sapota trees were abundant in the neighbourhood, we used to actually ‘eat around’ the gnawed portion.
Anyway, I left 3 or 4 partially eaten guavas for the squirrels, even though I doubt they will touch them again, and plucked out the remaining half-a-dozen semi-ripe ones. Here they are -
The ones on the left are 2 of the squirrel eaten guavas. The coca-cola top is that of the half-litre PET bottle lying nearby and provides scale. The extreme right fruit on the top row is almost fully ripe. One more day and the squirrels would have piled onto it. The middle three are half ripe and a couple of days buried in the rice bin at home would soften them up nicely.
:-)
I got around to investigate the commotion in the morning and not to my surprise found they’ve been attracted by the ripening fruits of the Apple Guava tree in the backyard. There were a dozen guavas in various stages of ripening and the squirrels were having a merry time.
There is one problem with the Indian palm squirrels though. They never finish off guavas and instead gnaw just a little portion off it, before moving away to the next ripe one. Thus it is usual to see a Guava or even a Mango tree full of partially gnawed fruits. However, it does not deter us Indians from eating the fruits.
The usual practice is to slice away the partially eaten away portion of the fruit and happily munch away on the rest. In fact, during my younger days, when Indian gooseberry, mango, guava, sapota trees were abundant in the neighbourhood, we used to actually ‘eat around’ the gnawed portion.
Anyway, I left 3 or 4 partially eaten guavas for the squirrels, even though I doubt they will touch them again, and plucked out the remaining half-a-dozen semi-ripe ones. Here they are -
The ones on the left are 2 of the squirrel eaten guavas. The coca-cola top is that of the half-litre PET bottle lying nearby and provides scale. The extreme right fruit on the top row is almost fully ripe. One more day and the squirrels would have piled onto it. The middle three are half ripe and a couple of days buried in the rice bin at home would soften them up nicely.
:-)
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