Cartoons at our backyard
By Niharika Mookerjee
NEW YORK: Last I heard there was a new kid in Tarzan’s leafy town: the olinguito. It looked quite like the cute stuffed toy kids carry to their beds at night. Apparently, it was hiding in plain sight in the forests of Ecuador, when, voilà, it was caught on the camera by Smithsonian researchers.
In a world of fast-fading habitats of the wild and dismal updates of endangered species hitting us from all quarters, the news was a joyous breath of fresh air.
It spurred me to look closer into my small backyard for my own little olinguito, because all too soon the summer lights will fade away into an autumnal halo and visits from my furry visitors will grow infrequent.
The robin will fly away into warmer climes and the stray deer will stumble upon the fence once in a while but the gray squirrel, bless his mischievous heart, will be my treasure, filling my days with its comical tail, twirling over bird feeders, dangling upside down from wire threads, or peering with its beguiling eyes from beneath the cover of shining snow.
And through the lazy days of winter, it will continue to scamper, frisk and bound enthusiastically upon the green earth, in perennial quest for acorns and beech nuts. And so he remains my constant, fuzzy companion during the long hoary months – a deep sign of consistency when daylight is a flicker and cold nights descend in a quiver.
From crevices of the trees and gangly branches, it emerges nearly every morning to spring a surprise on my window ledge as soon as I have settled down with my cup of tea.
Now, if ever there was a Tom and Jerry in the real world, it would definitely have to be the squirrel and the birds in the dance-hop-chase for the pine nuts.
The other day I saw it, a large, fat creature, shooting down the tree, fanning out its bushy tail, in a bid to frighten the pair of blue jays and starlings that had come its way. The birds, not ones to be outdone by a good- for-nothing rodent, flew up, squawked noisily, and pecked erratically at it.
Enraged by their audacity, it stood up on its hind legs, puffed itself up; perhaps, imagining itself to be the lioness of the neighborhood, and angrily chased away the birds. But no, sir, the blue jays would not flee the fight. Resolute, they came back again, with vendetta at their beaks and the mad dash went on, again and again. Remarkably, not quite unlike the silly wars we wage in a show of muscle.
At one time, the inquisitive little fellow, with its ferocious greed for bird food, suddenly found itself half- sunken in a bird bath, out of which it struggled to climb its way out much like a polar bear from out of a bath tub. But it kept tippling over and mounting back again. Who could explain to that bouncing blob of gray that there was no cracked corn in that attractive bowl of ceramic that seemed to beckon to it like a bottle of rum to a drunken gambler?
But never mind. I laughed so loud that I nearly spilled my chai on the chair. And on another day, it came hopping and skipping close to where I sat cozily on an Adirondack chair. It stood up and sniffed. It couldn’t decide: was I the stuff of a delicious plant or a fearsome foe?
I sat very still, wishing it would spring onto my lap as it does in the movies in such a show of spontaneous solidarity. However, it looked so comical and trusting in its dainty approach that I couldn’t help stretching out my hand in a warm “hello”.
Alas, it spooked out and fled in a pell-mell retreat, causing a pandemonium among the turtle doves and sparrows that had gathered around the fence for an on-going conversation.
And with that, it darted on to its next adventure with acorns hidden underneath and yellow butterflies prancing on top. The spotted woodpecker, poking absorbedly at the limb of a tree, nonchalantly, gave it a glance, so bored, it was, of its clownish antics.
To me, it was cinema enough for a day! For sure, in a world where nobody parts with anything unless it is amply paid for by cash, the backyard merrymakers provide me with great many laughs.
The squirrel’s frenetic pace and adaptability makes it a great survivor except for its poor display of timing, particularly, when it comes to traffic. Have you noticed how as soon as your car whooshes down the road, the squirrel, in that perilous minute, decides, to make a crazy dash for it? The brakes screech, the tires crash, your car makes for a quick swerve and the poor little thing has, perhaps, adroitly changed its course, in what may constitute to be a happy ending, if it is lucky.
But, unfortunately, the giant monsters of the road are no match for the woodchucks or the fragile butterflies that, mistakenly, pirouette on the road as if it were the Broadway lights on the big stage.
Much like the times when life knocks us off our feet. And, dazed, we stand with folded arms, rest a while, unnerved at first, and then off, we are onto the next roar for nuts and bolts of a different kind where poetry is replaced by the price.
Not for the squirrels, however. Next time I saw it, just when I thought it had run out of antics, there was a couple of them perched atop the bird-feeder, swinging away without a care in the world, with only golden acorns on their mind, and the hint of a swagger , “Hey, look at me, I’m James Dean of the forest green.”
(Niharika Mookerjee has been writing for over a decade about the political, business, cultural and personal aspects of life in the United States for leading Indian and American publications including The Brown Publishing Company for newspapers in the mid-west, India Abroad, The Observer and The Indian Express North American edition.)