Gray squirrel, most common North American mammal, is often taken for granted

The Squirrel and the Computer
A power failure calls up an old file named "conscience"
(Previously published by Salon.com)

By Robert Winkler
About the Author

My screenful of words vanished, and the digital clock on my answering machine clicked off. The electric hum always in the background of human existence—motors of refrigerator, furnace and computer fan—sighed away. The room fell silent at 9:50 a.m., but my internal power plant kicked in with a flash of exasperation.

I had not saved what I was working on, though it was less than half a page. What could possibly go wrong on this warm, sunny and windless day?

The electric company had received no other reports from my street but said they would send someone out. I made other calls and an hour later, with an excuse not to work, left for the bookstore. Just outside the driveway, a yellow electric company truck with flashing lights idled beside a utility pole. I asked the driver the cause of the power failure.

"Squirrel," he said. "On the transformer."

"Was it killed?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Electrocuted?"

He nodded and motioned to the base of the pole.

"It's over there."

I left the car running and got out to look. Eyes half closed, the unlucky arboreal acrobat lay on its side between the truck and the pole—a female gray squirrel who chose the wrong tree.

Under her chin, possibly at the point of contact, the fur was burned completely away, exposing a patch of bare white skin about 1.5 inches in diameter. Black-singed fur bordered this area and extended down the right side. The white underside fur, scorched brown or sheared almost to the skin, seemed the work of a mad electrified barber.

The partly consumed gray fur on the sides and legs resembled steel wool. A burn line followed the left hind leg almost to the toes. The head, back and tail seemed relatively unaffected. The electric company man got out of the truck and came over.

"Burned through," he said. "It must have come along, touched the hot wire that leads from the transformer to the overhead wire, then touched the grounded transformer. That's 13,000 volts."

He said it happens often, and that sometimes an animal will get into a substation and knock out a whole town.

"I'll turn the power on in 10 minutes," he said. "Just have to flick a switch at the end of the street."

Our brief conversation next to running vehicles on the otherwise deserted street was the only service for this fallen denizen of the trees. I wondered about her history and whether others would mourn her. Perhaps we had been neighbors for years, and I had seen her bounding through the woods, or she could have been related to other squirrels I know.

"Gray Squirrel" by Robert Winkler

The sound of her teeth grinding the hickory nut may have caught my attention on the way to the mailbox. I might have watched her spiraling around a tree trunk at play with another squirrel or heard her barking at the neighborhood cat.

Was her home that clump of leaves and sticks in the bare tree? That morning outside my window squirrels busily dug up nuts and scampered into the woods. She might have been returning to the nest to feed her young, who would never learn her fate.

On this beautiful day, having survived the winter, she must have rejoiced at the promise of spring as she hastened to fulfill maternal duties. She could have taken this route in safety a hundred times before, then chanced one day to place herself in the deadly position.

Perhaps an amorous male pursued her, or she paused to sniff something, or some ground-dweller had alarmed her into climbing to where she thought she would be safe. Perhaps she had miscalculated her leap to the pole and grabbed whatever was within reach, or perhaps she placed one leg here before letting go there and thus became a victim of her own caution. A buzzing, burning flash gripped her, drew the life from her, flung her away.

The one connection with the squirrel I was certain about was the moment of her death, marked by the shutdown of my computer. Her final pulse of life brought human doings on this quiet street to a temporary halt—her immolation a wild creature's ultimate statement on technology.

Standing over her, I realized how rarely many of us pause, in our often self-absorbed, technology-driven lives, to acknowledge the rightful place of so ordinary a creature as a squirrel.

Furry lives end every day in the suburban jungle, but this one's tragic departure was not forgotten at the flick of a switch. I picked her up by her bushy tail and moved her to a grassy resting place farther away from the road.

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A message from Robert Winkler

Jeff Brush/Connecticut Post (used with permission)

If you enjoyed this essay, I know you'll enjoy my critically acclaimed book, Going Wild: Adventures with Birds in the Suburban Wilderness (National Geographic), which expands on many of the short pieces I've posted here. Why do I write about birds? Because they represent the wild in all its glory. They're numerous, diverse, intelligent, talkative, and beautiful; their power of flight never ceases to amaze; and they're the most conspicuous class of wild animal—even in the suburb, they're just about everywhere. Whether you're a beginning or advanced birder, a fan of nature writing, a curious suburbanite, or a reader in search of that rare bird known as a good book, Going Wild could very well change how you view your world. So get your copy now, or buy one for your favorite birder or nature lover. Best deal on the Web: brand new, perfect copies $5 each (69% off) at National Geographic Books.

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