It’s not something you see every day. And unfortunately, like usual, I didn’t have a camera with me. Some day I will figure out why you only see things like this when you don’t have anything available to take a picture. There are probably people doing research on it right now. But that doesn’t give me a picture of a swimming squirrel.
But yes, a squirrel swam past me the other morning.
I was sitting in the boat, drifting along, sipping my morning coffee… and okay… maybe I was trying to catch a bass or two. But it was a beautiful morning and I was sitting back, relaxing, just enjoying it, when I noticed something in the water heading in my general direction. It was a squirrel.
Now, I know that squirrels can swim. I’ve seen it before, although it rarely happens. But this one was chugging along and seemed top have a purpose in mind. It was heading across the lake.
I checked the shore it had just come from. There was nothing there that would make a squirrel jump in rather chilly water and go for a paddle. No cats. No birds of prey. No coyotes wearing a napkin around their neck with dinner utensils in their hands and a catalogue from Acme sitting nearby. Nothing like that. I could see nothing that would cause a squirrel to leap from the safety of the shore into the water.
I looked to the other side. The shoreline on that side was much the same. No huge grove of oak trees with their abundance of acorns beckoning to squirrels on the other shore. Nothing over there to entice a squirrel to go for a swim.
He swam by, giving me a little glance, but showing no interest in joining me. In fact, he gave me a fairly wide berth and kept heading for the other side. He was looking good in the water. His fur seemed fairly buoyant, and he didn’t seem winded at all. He was just out for a cruise.
As far as I know, he made it, although being a squirrel and fairly small it was hard to keep him in sight. There was an osprey that circled for a while probably trying to figure out what sort of fish that was. But since it was the furry kind, the osprey left him alone. Probably also wondering why there was a squirrel swimming across the lake.
But it still remains a mystery. For now, all I can figure out is the reason for the squirrel crossing the lake would be the same as for a chicken crossing the road. The only reason I could see for crossing the lake was… to get to the other side.
