The Most Harrowing Squirrel Encounter of My Life

When you have to ask yourself "was I just attacked by squirrels?" you know your weekend is not starting off right.

This past sunny summer weekend, I thought it would be a good idea to get up early and beat the heat by doing my yard work first thing in the morning.

As I typically do, I took my garden weeds to our compost pile in the backyard when I was done, but what happened next was completely atypical. As I was heading down the path to the pile, I heard a huge rustle in the trees. Surprised and alarmed, I looked up to see a group of eight squirrels running and darting my way.

For whatever reason, my first thought was that I was about to be attacked by a pack of wild squirrels.

Luckily I was not attacked, though further research proved to me that squirrel attacks on humans are rare, but do happen. I didn't see anything about a pack of squirrels attacking someone, though.

So what was up with the squirrel pack?

It turns out a group of squirrels is called a scurry (or a dray) and though the name sounds so cute, the reality is far from it.

I think the squirrels coming at me were young, perhaps some fairly newborn brothers and sisters. I think they were just so busy playing with each other that the human being right in front of them went unnoticed.

They, however, were not unnoticed and have left a perhaps permanent mark on my psyche.

Have you ever had a really weird animal encounter that you just had to tell people about? I'm pretty sure this squirrel story is exactly that for me.