Cut-paper art illustration from A Day and Night in the Desert
In my book, A Day and Night in the Desert, I illustrated a scene with a barrel cactus, a desert dwelling squirrel and a red-tailed hawk flying overhead. A sidebar reads: Antelope ground squirrels often climb barrel cacti to eat the fruit. No one knows how they keep from getting stuck on the cacti’s sharp spines.
Squirrel plucking ripe fruit from a barrel cactus
On my recent visit to the Huntington Botanical Garden in San Marino, California, I had the chance to observe this unusual behavior in real life. The cactus and succulent section of the garden has a large display of barrel cacti, and they were plump from recent rains and covered with ripe fruit. I watched a squirrel nimbly hopping up the cacti to harvest the fruit. The squirrel (a common gray squirrel) seemed to be able to balance on the spines and had no trouble reaching the fruit.On the same page spread the main text of the book reads: A red-tailed hawk circles the sky. It is looking for something to eat. The squirrel sees the hawk and dashes to safety inside its burrow.
Rather amazingly, I got to witness this part of my story too. As my friend and I walked through the garden we had seen several red-tailed hawks soaring in the sky and perching in the trees overhead. Suddenly, one swooped down beside us and just ahead attacked an unsuspecting squirrel. We could hear the thud of the impact and the squirrel squealing. Luckily, it managed to escape.
