h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

FWR:

Hard to capture such a quick animal, especially when it's hiding in shadows on a bright day. Timing and patience or quick reflexes evident in this pic!

Is this Fred in different light?

Not unless Fred has plane tickets I don't know about. This is Bob's squirrel.

Probably just a distant cousin who looks similar, then. Squirrels are really very helpful. They make sure that oak trees get planted under my porch, where they refuse to die .

With us, it's maples in the flower beds, and black walnuts, everywhere.

Walnuts secrete Juglone, which is toxic to many other plants.

But you can grow root vegetables, squashes and beans near walnut trees. The only issue would be getting them enough sunlight.

Sadly, juglone will not phase Japanese Knotweed, though Japanese beetles might.

Hullo Fred!

Oh, not Fred.

This is the second mention of Fred the Squirrel I have encountered in the last 24 hours.

Very curious little creature, indeed, this not Fred squirrel. Lovely pic, Bob. I like the way his, or her, feet are all bunched up, perched precariously in a moment in time!

'Tis a squirrel moment, a curious moment, you can sense his, or her, whiskers twitching.

And the lit up background! The lit up foliage, its amazing, and the contrast with the foreground of the pic is so awesome I might fall into its world and not return.

Squirrels and blue jays get most of the credit for the spread of oak trees across the world. The human race has also helped, by bringing oaks and acorns into the Southern hemisphere, where they are not native.

Oaks in Australia:
http://www.quora.com/Why-does-Australia-have-oak-trees

North Africa has nativ oaks. South Africa does not, but oaks have been brought in aklong with other trees:\
http://www.treerisksa.co.za/why.htm

South America has only one native species of oak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_humboldtii

And wherever you have people who prize truffles, youy will find that someone has brought in some oaks, eveni n Argentina

Is it the oaks that refuse to die, or the squirrels?

Love the picture.

Probably the oaks, but some squirrels are amazingly tough. One was rescued from the ruins of the World Trade Center in 2001. It later fathered other squirrels.