Spring and Summer 2012 in Finland

[Olga]

I think I have better to jump to the 14th and 15th July:

It's morning in the video, one day before we brought Bertha to Korkeasaari. There is seen Paula to check the cage. I just tested if it can be put on the platform, the door was shut. No danger that she would go in to the cage. I didn't see Bertha on that day, Saturday.



On Sunday morning Bertha appeared and stepped inside the cage. That was it. Bertha is now there in Korkeasaari zoo, medical center there, and is taken care - no news about her not yet, it's too early.

When I was back home in the afternoon, I saw this:



In the next minute appeared the second pup!



They are seemingly siblings.

[Felis silvestris]

Oh Olga, I just read about Bertha! What shocking news! And at the same time, how wonderful of you to call the experts and get her treatment! I hope she will recover and can come back to Squirrel Hill! I keep my fingers crossed!

[Olga]

Hi, Lussi! I'll wait if they call today, if not, I'll call there tomorrow afternoon.

[alice44]

What cute little guys!

[Olga]

Oh Olga, I just read about Bertha! What shocking news! And at the same time, how wonderful of you to call the experts and get her treatment! I hope she will recover and can come back to Squirrel Hill! I keep my fingers crossed!

Bertha will not return, she had bad infection, she could not be helped. The problem was a huge abscess and it had spread to the blood circulation - if I did understood right. They gave her the last anesthesia on 15th July.

[Felis silvestris]

What sad news, Olga! I am so sorry to read this!

[alice44]

What sad news, Olga! I am so sorry to read this!

It is a bit like a punch in the gut.

[Olga]

Bertha:



Dear friends, it is very sad, that she could not be helped, but at the same time we can be happy that we like 'knew' Bertha squirrel, this individual among squirrels somehow we knew her. If she had pups, they will be alright, very probably, and we may have already seen them for a couple of times. I think also, that we have to be happy that Mops is alright. She too was in danger to get a worse injury, and perhaps the 'same infection'...

It was just an 'accident', bad luck that Bertha was wounded that way. It happens, Nature is what it is.

Of course we can't be sure if she got the infection after having the fight with Mops...

These two could be offpsrings of Bertha! Picture from 17th July.

***

Mops on the 14th:

She is fine.





Good that I can't better English, I could write too much..

[Kuremari]

So very sorry for Bertha!
You did your very best to help her and so did the people at the zoo.
And sometimes our best is not enough ... it was just her time to move to sguirrel heaven.
Be sure she is so thankful for the good care you take of all the small creatures on Squirrel Hill. :)

[Lussi05]

Olga, I am so sorry that Bertha didn't make it.
But thanks to you, she did not suffer, and she had a very nice home on Squirrel Hill. But as you say, this is nature, it gives and takes.
Fortunately Mops is ok, and if Bertha had pups hopefully they are grown enough to manage on their own by now.
Thank you for the information Olga

[Olga]

Thanks for kind words, dear Squirrel friends.

I did what I could. Someone could say, that it would have been possible to phone earlier for advice etc.. perhaps, yes. Here we are though. It was too difficult to believe that the 'ball' was that dangerous.

A friend of mine (she is member of a local animal protection association ) said that Bertha would have perished sooner or later in any case, that now she did not have to suffer longer time, not to die in her nest or on a tree branch, to fall down on the ground half dead, who know where, bigger birds would have found her, or a fox, a dog, raccoon dog .. Oh no, I don't want to think of it.. even though Nature is.. you know, not merciful but cruel some times.

In Korkeasaari they said that she may have got the illness (bacteria into some occasional wound) already earlier, that no-one would have been able to guess, that even though a squirrel eats well, takes water, they can be sick, sensitive, behave unexpectedly in some moment... No-one knows. I never followed her there in the forest where she actually spent the most of her time and lived a normal squirrel life.

A short life, too, is a whole life.

[leonia]

Hello Olga, it's a sad story about Bertha. But I think she had had a smooth way going to squirrel heaven, beeing in the clinic. It would have been much worse for her if she would have become more and more weak and would have been easy prey for any raptor. So it was good you took her to the vets, it was the best what could happen to her.

Many greetings from Munich!

[Manu]

Hi Olga,
it's so sad to read this sad news about Bertha.
Olga, you have done all the time the best for her (and all the others) and she had such a nice life on squirrel hill.
Rest in peace little girl...

[Olga]

Hi Olga,
it's so sad to read this sad news about Bertha.
Olga, you have done all the time the best for her (and all the others) and she had such a nice life on squirrel hill.
Rest in peace little girl...

Thanks, Manu.. I imagine that Bertha has changed to a real little hill forest fairy (or gnome, they have long ears and friendly face as far as we know), and she can been seen in the forest some day by some path.. It has been told to us before we moved here in this old little house on Squirrel hill´, that a foreigner guest, a young man, had run shocked in the house and told that he had seen a tiny little being with long furry ears standing behind a tree trunk, watching at him. The mysterious being was no longer than about 30 cm. It had gray brown clothes.

It happened in one summer midnight, so the night was not dark and the young man was told not to have taken e g wine ..

It happens to anyone, one never knows.

Perhaps the next inhabitants of this house may see the fairy/gnome some day in the future. How could we know beforehand! No way.

A great tit chick eating, knocking the seed cover and then.. uups..

[Olga]

16th July

[Olga]

Charley, for one week ago:

13th July:

..several 'old' videos be added little by little..and perhaps not exactly in chronological order

I know, something is missing..

***
A kind of an interim review for the moment:

It's the 20th July. I think I could recognize 7-8 adult red squirrels living on this hill, anyway all of them who can be seen if not every day but often though:

Females:

Silk ear (or Paula -the name I used of her in the spring), she has long and dark tassels in winter.

Star (probably the same female whom I named as Anja last summer),

Mops (could be the same female who was used to call as Smiley last summer), more dark than the others, special trait on face.

(Bertha is missing now. She was easy to recognize, I knew her face and ears, expression, 'sensitive' by nature, alert..)

Males do not visit as regularly as females.

Baby face, the most easy to recognize (most devoted male visitor during last about 6 months, he has relative short tail, big feet and 'big' head..he is very beautiful and symphatetic .. )

Charley, I know his profile, on basis of its form like 'egg', smooth.. how to say, typical expression on the face)

Oscar, the handsome male (just a human view of point,..)

Lonely boy, a rare visitor, too, special mimics on the face. Not tall, rather short profile. His face I thought (2010) to resemble the face of a Finnish 'rock star', Rauli Badding Somerjoki this may sound funny, but it just occurred then into my mind.

Bud, a relative slim and tall male, but not actually 'very tall', looks like youngster, not seen often, seldom. I know his profile well,..difficult to explain..short profile, too, and his nose looks a bit like 'snub nose'..



On pups: I don't know the number of the pups of this summer - probably four..hm.. actually I can't say! They are not regular visitors..no-one knows yet.

Well, what I wrote, is nothing 'scientific', I swear! I work daily on the other side of the window glass where the feeder has been for almost three years.
Paula the Silk ear was the first one I could say I learnt to 'see', her firsr name was 'Long ear' 2009 in fall.


PS: :peek: There may be what ever language mistakes in my posts - I can English just a little - I just wanted to repeat this.. there are so many new members..

[Olga]

Four videos of Mops on the 14th July:



Mops seen closer:


Mops, a tall looking female:


Mops is alright

[alice44]

Olga

As an old regular -- thanks for that fantastic summary!

[Felis silvestris]

Olga, from me too! I do enjoy looking at your squirrels and the little stories your photos tell! Don't worry about your English, we do understand you perfectly, and a lot of us are not native speakers as well! I guess we would have a lot of problems, should we have to write Finnish!

I love that little tit, almost falling off looking for a seed!

Thanks for sharing your stories!

[Olga]

Alright! I'll add two more videos more now, from the 15th, of Paula the Silk ear:

It was the same afternoon after returning from Korkeasaari, and when the two pups appeared at same time behind the window. Till that day I had seen them only one by one. The pups went away, but soon there was Silk ear, and after some minutes the other one of those two pups settled himself for company with the adult female, the mother of the pups??, or aunt or grandmother I don't know. I thought at first that they came to search Bertha..


Silk ear eating a while alone..



Silk ear and the other one the two pups:



the two pups seen for the first time together can be seen here:
viewtopic.php?p=153725#p153725