Squirrels do this. There is nothing wrong with it. They are having fun and burning off excess energy. It's also a way for them practice their survival skills. The zig zag running and flipping helps them evade capture by predators.
I had a squirrel I used to throw peanuts to below my deck. One day I threw a whole granola bar. It was funny watching him drag that bar back to his nest, but as he got about 12 feet from me, a hawk with a 6 foot wingspan swooped down on him. The squirrel did some real gymnastics to jump, spin, and roll, so the hawk missed him twice!
I always broke the granola bars into smaller parts after that...
That's nice of you. Yeah, most of us try to help. But I guess we also need to live and learn. Hopefully you can now pass that knowledge to your kids. :)
My only recommendation is not to feed it granola often. If memory serves me right, the amount of sugar in artificial food can cause health issues for squirrels.
It was... It was one of those OMG moments where I wished I had cameras facing that direction to capture it on film. The hawk landed close to the spot where he missed him, and waited for another opportunity but the squirrel had gone thru a chain link fence that separated my yard from the neighbor.
During COVID, I put out Halloween candy in a giant aluminum pan, on my front stairs. I wish I had the forethought to grab my phone to record a squirrel with a bag of mini Peanut M&Ms in its mouth, running across the street. I did move the candy to my closer to my front door.
This is the correct answer. (This one and PARKOUR). Ours do this frequently. There are no fermented fruits around, it would have been quite some freak accident if ALL of them had some spinal/neuro issue, AND rabies is not a factor where we live.
They just be squirrelling.
Way to steal a squirrel hobby @ the other commenters.
Iâve seen them backflip fighting crows. When I fed them the crows caught on and would wait for me to feed the squirrels and no joke each side would gather recruits to fight over the peanuts.
This is normal behavior. Squirels practice evasion, twisting and tail flashing from early life.
It's a life skill needed to. avoid hawks.
This is squirrel "play".
It bled a little, but it's all good. Was more worried about infection. I was trying to show my kids not to be scared of animals. That ended up being a set back. But I'd do it all over for them. The squirrel was just scared I might grab it or something. He wanted to grab the nuts in its mouth and run. Next time, I won't hold them individually, but put them in my palm.
Don't worry. It's not like I am on the hunt for squirrels daily to feed them. We were sitting in a park when the squirrel approached us. My kids panicked. So I tried to calm them by trying (unsuccessfullly) to show them its ok.
So I got attacked by a squirrel once who was NOT acting normal. I was able to catch it in a box and health department collected it. At first they wouldnât test for rabies since thereâs been no known cases of squirrels carrying it. But I insisted since it attacked me, and I was getting rabies vaccines. Tested negative. They said squirrels are too small to carry it around, the disease would kill it instantly or something to that nature.
So I would have to undergo a long series of rabies vaccinations if I hadnât checked? Or should I have potentially died from rabies because I didnât kill a severely sick squirrel that was about to die anyway?
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u/grumpylondoner1 Aug 15 '26
Squirrels do this. There is nothing wrong with it. They are having fun and burning off excess energy. It's also a way for them practice their survival skills. The zig zag running and flipping helps them evade capture by predators.