knats

[Eden]

Ah, westerners.

Around here it can take 20 seconds (an eternity when you're coming toward it at speed) and five or six changes of direction for a squirrel to decide exactly which one of the 200 or so trees with 20 feet of it is the nearest...

c'mon I'm up in Puget Sound... we've got plenty of trees... (unlike high desert parts of Western WA, which yeah, it's not real hard to figure out which tree is closest) Our squirrels don't always do the quickest mental calculations... but crossing the road it's pretty easy to figure out anyway. Given trees on both sides, if they are less than 1/2 way across they will turn around and run back (in front of you). More than 1/2 way they'll continue... If only one side has trees they'll head for that side without fail, no matter how far across they are when they get startled.

Then again I actually had my first squirrel close call in a while just yesterday on my way to work... In a parking lot... with no particularly near trees... He did run in the direction of the closest ones (doubling back across my path....sigh....), but boy I thought I was going to be picking squirrel out of my fork.