Some accuse me of “anthropomorphizing” the animals. Of course — don’t all children? It is a way of connecting. But I have stepped back, to leave our animal relatives in their own worlds. My subjects are not wearing human clothes or using our tools, nor are they doing anything that they would not be physically capable of doing. Would a chipmunk drape a string of oak galls and juniper berries around the neck of a skunk, whose bear-like paws are incapable of such dexterity? Who knows. But the capability is there.

As many a wildlife expert has said, “It is impossible to overestimate the cleverness of squirrels.”