Tree Rats of Marshall

Yesterday I attended the West Virginia Academy of Sciences meeting at Marshall University in Huntington. Professionally, it was a big step because my students presented and I was the proud advisor, I had to pay adult prices for the first time ever, and I may have successfully networked with real botanists. Rodent-wise, it was a good day because the center quad of the Marshall campus was teeming with eastern gray squirrels. They were chasing each other and digging in the bulb beds and acting completely unbothered by the flow of students, much like campus squirrels everywhere. Or everywhere except the campus where I work, at which I have not seen a squirrel.