When kids list their favorite animals, squirrels rarely make the cut. They’re too common, too familiar. We can walk through a park full of squirrels and not even notice them. A naturalist will rarely point one out as something worth noticing. But… squirrels are my favorite animal.
There’s a case to be made for noticing and appreciating squirrels—and once we open our eyes to how majestic and funny squirrels are, we may discover a more beautiful way to relate with nature and with each other.
The Case for Squirrels
Squirrels are majestic athletes. Every day they put on world class performances in venues across the globe. Death defying tightrope walks along humming power lines. Impossible leaps from windowsills to bird feeders. Spirals up tree trunks and through the highest branches of trees. Chases that look like joy made visible. Squirrels move through the world with a kind of reckless grace, as if gravity and caution don’t apply to them.
Squirrels are architects of entire landscapes. The mightiest American forests were, in large part, planted by squirrels. Maybe it’s a part of some rodent master plan, maybe it’s forgetfulness, maybe it’s due to a lucky predator. Whatever the reason, the acorns and walnuts squirrels bury and don’t dig up become the trees that feed future generations of squirrels and fill the lungs of future generations of humans.
Squirrels are funny. Watch two young squirrels chase each other around a tree and try not to laugh.
Maybe one of the most magical things about squirrels is also why we so often forget to notice them: squirrels are everywhere. They’ve adapted to just about every environment shaped by nature or built by humans. You’ll find them in the heart of a city just as easily as in the depths of a forest. They are equally at home in the suburbs or the wilderness. Wherever you find yourself reading this, if you step outside and look for five minutes, I bet you’ll see a squirrel.
Noticing the Normal
As humans, we often place a very high value on what’s rare: diamonds, snow leopards, first editions. We assign worth to scarcity, as if beauty depends on how hard something is to find.
Let’s take a very unsquirrely monet and pause to think. Are scarcity and rarity helpful ways to measure value? Is a distant animal more worthy of awe than the one flicking its tail ten feet away?
When we chase rarity as what we measure to value, protect, or enjoy something, we risk missing what’s right in front of us.
If your favorite animal is a panda or a snow leopard or a rhino, that’s wonderful. They need our value and protection! For my part, I have chosen to love something I can see every day. I have chosen to direct my attention towards what I can see and experience.
When I slow down—put my phone away and shelve my expectations for what I will find—and just experience the world around me, I start to realize something: magic was never rare. We just stopped seeing it. Routine dulls the edges. Familiarity blurs the wonder. Squirrels are amazing.
I am trying to let my love for squirrels shape how I approach the people in my life. I am trying to pay attention to the small things that happen all around me every day. The richest parts of our lives and relationships go way beyond the big moments: the weddings, the graduations, the births. A lot of squirrely joy and magic are hiding in plain sight: a cup of coffee with a friend, a book shared with a child, an after-dinner walk through the neighborhood.
If your favorite animal lives half a world away, you may spend your life waiting to see it. I don’t have to wait. Mine is already here—ready to jump out of a trash can or fall out of a tree. As we shape the relationship that we and our students have with nature, I think it’s worth intentionally focusing on what is around us. There is deep and lasting value in noticing things that are common. There is beauty and wonder all around us if we are willing to notice it.
