It started weeks ago. I could see them at work outside my office window. First a brown one. Then two, each solid black. Squirrels slowly, methodically, peeling the bark off a young, thin, maple tree.
They started their work about midway up. After they skinned off the first piece, I didn’t think much of it. A walk through any woods up here reveals small scars on trees – shiny bone outlined by dark bark. Most trees do just fine after such an assault, because the injury is contained. Perhaps the squirrels get bored with a single spot. Like a restaurant too often visited, variety is good, so the squirrels move on.
This, though, was different. Each morning, the squirrels would come back to this unlucky maple. The initial three squirrels grew to five, sometimes six at a time … a treetop coffee klatch. Each morning, they would peel more, working from the middling spot up, then from the middling spot down.
Today, the tree stands bare except on its thinnest branches – a skeleton from root level to its spindly top.
It’s sad to see, frankly. In fact, you can’t help but see it. As I write this, light snow descends, and the woods around us are showcased by evergreen branches weighed heavy with last night’s fall. But while the trunks of the other trees – oaks, other maples, cedars and pines – stand straight, tall, silhouetted like shadowy soldiers against the white, our small victim of the squirrels’ obsession is terribly easy to spot. The tree’s thin core is a slight yellow, yet the color so contrasts with its grayscale surroundings, it shouts its vulnerability.
It will die. A tree without bark is like me or you without our arteries and veins. Leaves send food, via photosynthesis, to the roots; the roots send water and minerals to the leaves. The layer of tissue just beneath the bark provides the down-and-up pathway. Our small tree has been stripped of that layer. So, its destiny is sealed. I wonder if I should cut it down, to ease the suffering.
Sad. In the fall, it was a brilliant red.
Why did our squirrels, who we know well because of their antics around our bird feeder, do such a thorough job on the unlucky maple? Squirrels strip bark to pad their nests, say wildlife experts. But they also enjoy the sugars and nutrients layered between bark and trunk.
I can grant them the need for building material. Perhaps they see a more-severe winter ahead. (It’s been pretty wimpy so far.) As for food, though, we were bombarded by large acorns this fall, and I watched the little beasties as they buried their hoards. I can’t imagine they’re lacking nutrition. In fact, they seem a bit chubby.
Regardless, why strip an entire tree when a smorgasbord of trees would do?
Hard to know. But it seems a metaphor for our time. Perhaps dueling metaphors.
The convenient reach is to see it as a sign of societal distress – a stark warning like a red flare, shot into the sky. “Something is clearly wrong among you men!” the fur friends are saying. “Beware!” After witnessing beasties of another sort raiding the Capitol building last week, maybe this is the right conclusion … our squirrels are bushy-tailed Paul Reveres. This is our Liberty Tree.
The kinder, gentler reach is that Nature always has its excesses … the unusual events, the unexpected twists and turns, the seeming aberrations. As perfect and predictable as Nature often is, it’s when you take her for granted that you’re surprised. So, our bare tree is just the product of our squirrels deciding to be, well, unusually squirrely. Nature’s like that.
Ever the optimist, I’m leaning toward the second view.
That said, now, during my usual, winter walks through the woods, I’m on the hunt for more trees like our doomed maple. Just to be sure they’re not out there multiplying – flanking our forests in ever-increasing numbers, shouting their own silent warnings. Like an army of skeletons in a cemetery parade.
So far, so good.
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