Go Retire Psychiatrist

Sena has been getting videos of animals lately, specifically a squirrel, a red-tailed hawk, and a hummingbird. At first, I wasn’t sure that they were doing (or not doing).

Starting with the squirrel, an animal who stores nuts in our yard and then seems to forget just exactly where. Depending on the web sites I checked, it’s often not unusual for them to forget where they bury their nuts about half the time. Or they remember better than you think and may try to fool other animals about where they bury them, even digging them up and burying them someplace else.

Red-tailed hawks can roost in a tree for what seems like a pretty long time. They’re not snoozing or meditating. They watch and wait—often for squirrels too busy to think about what might be watching them. That’s when hawks nab them.

Hummingbirds are in near constant motion. They don’t sing. They chatter or buzz. I’m not sure what they chatter about, maybe the tabloid news, which is not really newsworthy, since all you can find on any given day are pictures of pets, performers, and politicians. While in flight, you can hear their wings hum. I don’t know how you would distinguish humming from buzzing. Maybe when they hum it’s because they can’t remember the words.