Squirrel

Squirrel is presented not as a passive emblem of wildness but as an alert animal whose choices shape the hunt. In Maine, one Squirrel is pursued and killed by a Red-tailed hawk in a suburban backyard; in woodland in Britain, another escapes Mabel and poses a real risk to her. Together, the encounters show how the hunt depends on the movements and capacities of both predator and quarry, and how wild animals appear in landscapes marked by human settlement and change.

Identity and Place

The book’s references to Squirrel span two settings and different kinds of encounter. In the Maine episode, the animal is among the prey a passage Red-tailed hawk already knows how to hunt from its time in the wild. In the woodland episode, Mabel pursues a grey Squirrel up a tree but fails to catch it. The narrative does not give either animal an individual history beyond these encounters; their significance comes through their actions and their place within the falconry scenes.

The settings complicate any simple division between settled and wild country. In Maine, the hunt takes place around backyards, a fence, garages and a children’s play structure, with a family visible at an upstairs window. In the British woodland, the chase unfolds among trees and branches, where sightlines are broken and the animal can climb beyond Mabel’s reach. In both scenes, the environment shapes what each animal can do.

The Maine Hunt

During a Christmas visit to Maine, Helen accompanies Scott McNeff while he flies Yoder, a first-year Red-tailed hawk. Yoder was trapped earlier in the autumn, after leaving its nest and learning to hunt in the wild. Scott and Helen cross a snow-covered town rather than setting out into the surrounding woods. Yoder uses a children’s play structure as a perch before following them toward a pine behind a backyard fence.

Scott spots Squirrel in the tree. The chase becomes a contest of movement and position: the Squirrel leaps to another branch, and Yoder follows through the trees. The Squirrel’s familiarity with Red-tailed hawks is part of the account; these hawks live in the woods there. Yoder, too, has hunted Squirrels before Scott trapped him. The encounter therefore brings together two animals already attuned to the same kind of pursuit, even as it takes place in the middle of a town.

Yoder catches Squirrel, which is dead by the time Scott reaches the scene. The narration places the outcome within an ordinary domestic setting: nearby are a low fence, garages, a snow-covered barbecue and holiday decorations, while a television and a birthday song can be heard. The contrast is not that the wild has displaced the town, but that the hunt occurs within it. Squirrel’s role in the episode helps make that proximity concrete: a woodland predator and its quarry meet in a backyard, amid the signs of home and community.

The Woodland Encounter with Mabel

In a separate woodland hunt, Mabel pursues a grey Squirrel up a sweet chestnut tree. Helen runs after the hawk and sees Squirrel climbing the trunk to reach a high branch. Bark falls as Mabel returns to Helen’s fist when called. The attack has failed, but the return is consequential: Helen is relieved because Squirrels bite and can take a toe off a hawk’s foot. The quarry is therefore dangerous to the predator as well as vulnerable to it.

This brief encounter shows how the hunt depends on more than the hawk’s speed or training. Squirrel’s climb carries it to safety; Mabel’s pursuit brings her into the tree, and her recall brings the episode to an end. The account attends to the hazard faced by the hawk without turning Squirrel into a villain: its capacity to defend itself is part of the circumstances of the chase.

Human History and Significance

The woodland scene belongs to a landscape the book presents as historically layered rather than untouched. After watching deer and a hare move away, Helen reflects on the origins of animals found in the countryside. She associates the Squirrel on the sweet chestnut with North America, placing it alongside other animals brought into the landscape through trade, settlement and human activity. This reference widens the scene beyond a single failed hunt: the woodland’s inhabitants and their presence there are part of a longer history of movement between places.

Across the two episodes, Squirrel is both quarry and an active force in the encounter. In Maine, its movement through the trees draws Yoder into a hunt that ends in capture; in Britain, its escape demonstrates the limits of Mabel’s pursuit and the risks a hawk faces at close quarters. Their differences in outcome keep the scenes distinct, while their shared focus on animal action resists treating wildness as a quality belonging only to remote places. A Squirrel can be pursued in a town backyard or evade a hawk in woodland: in each case, the outcome is shaped by the animal’s own movement and by a landscape with a human history.