Squirrel Diaries - Part II

Our young heroine, Chippie the Squirrel, is nabbed and spirited off. Now she has a new country home in the Karoo…

By Julienne du Toit

The Burrower

A few months passed, and our Chippie was now a young adult. The urge arose, as it does in all ground squirrels, to burrow. And burrow and burrow. Our backyard (and the Rademeyers’) started to look as if a small prospecting team had moved in.

Then Chippie discovered the pavement, and created a veritable catacomb. She’d dive down one hole and pop up her head from another one. She even burrowed straight through a weak piece of tar.

And she loved our newspaper reading habits, because she would stuff one entire broadsheet page, into her mouth and dive down to line her nests with it. Socks went missing. Pillowcases too.

First, a quick word about ground squirrels. As the name will tell you, these squirrels never climb trees. Their Latin names tell you even more: Xerus inauris – dryland adapted creature without ears.

In Afrikaans, ground squirrels are known as waaierstert meerkatte – a tribute to the way they flick their tails back and forth when they sprint away from a threat. They use their fluffy tails as sun parasols, and can forage under their mobile sunshades in the noonday sun.

Squirrel-napped!

Her streetside residence inevitably attracted attention, though. Most of it was good – she had a firm set of fans who’d visit her nearly every day. Great big meat-eating farmers in bakkies would lie down full length on the pavement to play with her.

But one day she was squirrel-napped. A bit of detective-work from the Rademeyers, and four days later she was found in someone’s little flat, freaked out on a diet of scrambled eggs and coffee, poor little thing.

We took it as a sign, and after much consultation with the Rademeyer’s, we decided she should leave the big city behind and go to the countryside.

But not just any farm. Hester Steynberg of Ganora Guest Farm outside Nieu Bethesda has specialised in rehabilitating meerkats. This was her first ground squirrel though.

Ground Squirrel in Heaven

At first Chippie lived in a huge aviary. After a few months, those fantailed pigeons were really pleased to see her go. She’d lost none of her mischievous tail-biting habits.

Chippie discovered the lucerne fields and the walnut trees and must have though she’d landed in heaven. Before too long, Hester was remarking on how much weight she’d gained.

She waddled around, imperiously demanding snacks, then mysteriously vanished. A month or so later, she reappeared, this time with three babies.

And now, I’m happy to announce, she’s just had another litter of three. She doesn’t seem to have much appetite for romance, but Squirrie really is living happily ever after.

• DID YOU KNOW? The collective noun for a group of ground squirrels is a ‘scurry’.

• Squirrie aka Chippie is Ganora’s erratic front-desk rodent. To find out more about this delightful guest farm, visit www.ganora.co.za.