Birdwatching is obviously a thing as birds are everywhere, loud, demonstrate interesting behaviours, and they are often brightly coloured. Squirrels too are everywhere, loud, and demonstrate interesting behaviours. They aren’t brightly coloured, but their brindled, black, red, brown, grey, or even white in the case of some albino individuals at Trinity Bellwoods downtown Toronto, are still a joy to observe. So why not take up Squirrelwatching?
Elizabeth Porter is the project coordinator for the Squirrel Life project which is developing an app to collect community sourced observations of Squirrels (all species within the Sciuridae family) and their varied, interesting and often comical behaviour and then enables future researchers to access the shared collected data for their research. It’s a project with many aims including getting folks outside to observe wild life close to home while encouraging a closer look at varied Squirrel behviours which are happening all around, all the time. Along the way, Elizabeth is looking at how to communicate scientific research and findings with broad diverse communities. A great goal.
For me, tools which help people connect with the land in a good way should be explored and celebrated. Inaturalist, Merlin, and now Squirrel Life could be part of broader cultural tools like field guides, workshops, podcasts and experiential work in schools to get folks building their own relationships with the land. I am grateful that these tools exist.
To learn more :
Squirrel Life on twitter
Squirrel Life on instagram
Squirrel Life on Facebook
Epicollect website where you can find out more about the project