Why we watch

 The Texas naturalist Roy Bedichek often talked about watching wildlife. Of course you try to identify the species, he’d say. But that’s just a small part of it. He watched because he curious about what the individual was doing.

I thought of that while watching a squirrel carrying a tiny baby across a path and up a tree. The kit, dangling from its parent’s mouth, was tiny. Had the kit fallen out of the nest and survived by landing in the deep leaf litter? Was the parent having to move to a safer, less crowded place?

The Eastern gray squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis, was easy to identify. Its intentions are a mystery to me.