July 11: Squirrel bumps

I keep forgetting to re-fill the bird feeder. The birds don't need feeding, this time of year, but the purple finches were eating greedily anyway. They scatter a lot on the boards of the balcony, and the doves and squirrels come vacuum it up.

This morning a new squirrel visited a couple of times. She had more reddish brown in her coat than most gray squirrels, so it's possible she was a young fox squirrel. I didn't get a good enough look; she was very timid. I did see her back and sides, though, and I noticed a lump on her left side, behind the shoulder. Some kind of tumor, benign, one would hope. I forget that wild animals can have some of the same medical problems as domestic animals and us. But their lives usually end sooner and often more violently, and the medical issues don't have as much opportunity to creep up. Just like with us humans, back in the day.