My Back Yard

A swath of squirrel fur scooted outside across the bottom of my kitchen window.

What was a squirrel doing there? More to the point, how could a squirrel move smoothly at that level? There was no window sill for it to walk on. It would have to float in the air.

I leapt out of my seat and dashed to the window.

But all I saw was the top of my husband’s formerly curly hair. His barber shaved it down to bare skin about a month ago. Now it’s growing back as straight as a squirrel’s pelt. The individual hairs are darker than a squirrel’s. But the bits of bare scalp showing through make the overall impression a squirrelly gray.

“You, squirrel, you.” That’s what I thought affectionately as I recognized him. He was filling the bird feeders that hang on both sides of our kitchen window. He’d already restocked the Squirrel Palace with sunflower seeds.

Sometimes “squirrel” has a different meaning. Sometimes I use it when he shies away from something, like the timid squirrels who head back to the bushes when I walk outside with nuts. I’ll ask him, “Are you a man, or are you a squirrel?”

Bob and flutter. Bob and flutter. It’s a warm, sunny morning. The sparrows are lined up around one of the foil water pans on our patio. One ducks his head down into the water, then flutters his wings. The rest follow in rapid succession. Almost like the wave at Fenway.

Three foil pans sit close together, but the sparrows cluster at one. Is it part of a social ritual to drink and bathe together? After the sips that refresh, a girl plunges into the pool. She thrashes her wings, then hops back onto the curled foil edge. As if she’s shown how cute she is, so now it’s time to preen so a boy sparrow will notice her. Other birds follow her in this ritual.

When I left around 10 a.m. for the grocery store, the second pool was starting to fill. I wanted to stay, to observe more. But even more, I wanted to avoid the New Year’s Eve party shopping rush. When I returned at 12 noon, the pools were empty, even though sun still glanced off their surfaces.

My husband gave me a calendar. It features — what else? — squirrels.

Miss January stands amidst frost-covered branches dotted with red berries. Her tail hugs her back like a heating pad. She’s hunched over, elbows tucked in close to her torso, paws holding fruit up to her mouth. Her whole being focuses on eating.

January’s a tough month for squirrels. Not much food to scavenge if their stores run low. The females may be pregnant, eating for a litter in this lean season.

Have you seen the American Express ads with the tag line “my life. my card.”?

Here’s how one of my squirrels would answer the questions in that ad.

my name: Pu Shi

childhood ambition: star in my own TV show, like Captain Kangaroo or Bozo the clown

fondest memory: Squirrelly Holidays, when my humans throw lots of premium nuts on the patio

soundtrack: “Pu Shi, the Chinese squirrel,” composed by my straight-haired human

retreat: my drey (that’s squirrel talk for “nest”) in a tree hollow

wildest dream: to become a bigger star than Sugar Bush Squirrel by starring in my own TV show

proudest moment: when “welcome to the nut house” became the motto of my humans

biggest challenge: not overeating; my humans are very indulgent

alarm clock: the sun

perfect day: mosey down to my humans’ patio, which will be smothered in nuts in their shells; play tag with Tuna, Flattee and the other squirrels; snooze on a tree branch; jump in the inappropriately named bird bath to drink water; chow down at the Squirrel Palace; go to bed in my cozy drey

first job: illegal nut sniffer-outer at U.S. Customs checkpoint

indulgence: eating only the finest nuts and pre-hulled sunflower seeds

last purchase: nuts

favorite movie: “America’s Funniest Squirrels”

inspiration: nuts

my life: is about going for the nuts

I started writing about “My Back” Yard because a) I’m obsessed with squirrels and b) I’d like to become a better writer.

I never really looked at squirrels until my former Japanese teacher visited me. Kawaii! How cute, she said when she spotted them grazing on the Boston Common. Yeah, I had to agree.

But my obsession didn’t creep up on me until my husband started feeding them in our back yard. I’ll write more about that later.

In the meantime, I read that observing something — anything — closely is a good way for a writer to build her skills. So here I am blogging.

I started My Back Yard blog at Yahoo 360, but its limitations drove me crazy. Most annoying is that people have to become — and log in as — members of Yahoo 360 before they can comment. hence my move to Blogsome.

I chose Blogsome over other free blogging software because it offers categories. I’d like to experiment with categorizing my posts.

I spotted a different bird on the kitchen fence today.

Its golden yellow belly caught my eye. That can’t be a sparrow, I thought, even though its light brown back fell in the range of those tweeters. It wasn’t striped on top. And there was that sunny belly. Those characteristics disqualified sparrows.

I thumbed through Stan Teiela’s Birds of Massachusetts Field Guide. The guide organizes birds by color, which works well for me. I stopped at the Carolina wren, Throthous ludocianus. Its yellow belly grabbed me, a welcome reminder of summer when snow lingers underfoot.

The bird has a “prominent white eyebrow,” says Stan. That’s an eyebrow? It’s really a stripe running from in front of each eye to the back of the head.

“Look for the stubbyupturned tail,” he adds. Stubby? I prefer perky or assertive because, as Stan says, the tail is often cocked up.

Despite the Carolina appellation, the bird lives year-round in eastern Massachusetts.