Squirrels in NJ

Gaping through the window and looking at the busy town i got lost in thoughts. Felt some disturbance and looked around. We had many cherry trees and unknown colorful trees in front of our house. Two squirrels were busy playing hide-n-seek or some game which they do often.When i closely watched them i recognised a difference from these varieties and the one we see in India.

Yes, the good old stripes were missing in them. We all would have heard stories about how the squirrel got stripes from Lord Rama after assisting in the construction of the bridge. So how to conclude? Hope only our country and the squirrels in our country alone are lucky and blessed . Remember the good old caption of Onida TV "Neighbour's envy.Owner's Pride".

Cindhu dear
You have nicely illustrated the differences.. Yes I have also noticed the stripes missing on the squirrels here.. Maybe they are a different breed I would imagine.. however i like your reasoning much better.

Dear Cindhuja,

You have written very well. Even I noticed, when I visited the National Zoo in Washington DC. Good guess ...Not a bad one, at all !!

with love,

Cindhuja..We(me and my son) enjoy watching squirrels every day when we were in NJ.we used to put bread in balcony for that to eat.The squirrels here are more chubby than in India..Very cute with their bushy tails.There used to numerous squirrels in NJ..After moving to OH..i have not seen much of squirrels..

Dear Cindhuja : Nice observation!! I guess the squirrel's here are blessed by Jesus Christ so they do not have the same stripes. Also they are much bigger, when I was new here I used to think that it was a cat until I saw the cat which I thought was a dog......and so on ....

Hi Cindhu,

Good observation ! :)

I guess what we call Squirrels in India (with stripes) are referred to as Chipmunks here.

And of course, squirrels also come in varieties here- like some are ground squirrels and others are tree bound.

I was laughing so much at Bhiku Matre's comment..when he thought they were cats..and cats were dogs...!! Big LaughTrue...all the animals appeared much bigger here (in US) and took some time to get used to....

He is absolutely right...when we were living in Boston, these Chipmunks were very common..running around everywhere ! Initially, I was so scared and used to mistake them for some other animal (since they were so big compared to normal squirrels) ...my children and dh were amused when I used to scream out of fear ! :)

Nice explanation given by you and Bhiku for the stripes !

Cheers
Krithika