Hello from New Orleans, where I had a whole other post planned — until I read this essay in Vox about a “squirrel census,” and had to adjust. Turns out counting squirrels is exactly the sort of inspirational foolishness I needed.
The essay is longish and has some detours, but along the way it tells the story of the Squirrel Census, a lighthearted neighborhood project that went on to take the idea of squirrel-counting about as far as it could go.
In short, a resident of Atlanta neighborhood Inman Park (whose dog was highly squirrel-attuned), wondered just how many of these excitable animals were around. Conversations with one neighbor, then many, led to the formation of a “volunteer Squirrel Census team.”
While these squirrel counters were not scientists, they did use scientific squirrel-counting methods. Which are a thing. Evidently. I’ll just quote from Vox.
Humans have been tracking squirrel migrations for at least two centuries. The most recent — the Great Squirrel Migration of 1968, in which swarms of starving eastern gray squirrels crisscrossed the eastern US, probably in search of food — was chronicled by the Danish-American wildlife biologist Vagn Flyger, who sometimes trapped the animals in his backyard using a combination of peanut butter and crushed Valium.
Flyger’s work also forms the basis of the Squirrel Census’s method for estimating a squirrel population based on point-in-time counts. In 2012, based on methods Flyger published in 1959, the team overlaid a map of the Inman Park neighborhood with a hectare grid. They assigned each hectare to a few volunteer sighters, many recruited from among family and friends. In April 2012, they recorded squirrel counts and other activity, twice in each hectare, for 20 minutes at a time. The team later used Flyger’s validated formula — which includes an adjustable factor to account for trees and other squirrel-obscuring miscellany — to estimate the neighborhood’s overall squirrel abundance.
Who knew? Anyway, this was the beginning of all sorts of squirrel-count activity, even leading to an effort toward a squirrel census of Central Park in New York City. You can read more in the Vox piece, or on the Squirrel Census site (and its Instagram).
But for our purposes, you get the idea: this whole squirrel enterprise got pretty ridiculous! And of course that’s why I admire it. Whether these squirrel spotters were doing proper science or not, they’d found a novel way of engaging with their environment (and not just the squirrels, as these amusing notes from New York spotters make clear). They’ve certainly changed the way I look at the squirrels on my block! So:
Next time some element of your neighborhood or other routine setting grabs your attention, take inspiration from the Squirrel Census and think of the most ridiculous way possible that you could take it more seriously.
A census is, of course, just one possibility. Talk to friends and neighbors; brainstorm and experiment. And if you find your ridiculous project getting out of hand, let it — and consider yourself lucky.
Bravo, Squirrel Census.
Noticing is about other people, too. The Icebreaker series aims to help with that. There’s a central collection spot for all the icebreakers to date, here.
Today’s icebreaker comes from reader Mary Austin :
If you had a personal chef coming over to make you dinner (and money is not an issue) what would you ask them to prepare for you?
Yum! My thanks to Mary; check out her Substack, Stained Glass in the City.
Please send your favorite icebreaker (whether you made it up or found it elsewhere) to consumed@robwalker.net. If I use your icebreaker you’ll get a free three-month sub to the paid edition of TAoN (or some other fun prize if you’re already a supporter).
IN OTHER NEWS
For Fast Company, I wrote about Costco selling gold bars.
This event from the folks at SVA Design Research sounds cool: Sam Lubell talks about his book, Atlas of Never Built Architecture. “How many architecture projects are planned but never constructed? Why? What might the world look like if these speculative structures had been realized?” Thursday May 2 in NYC, free, details here.
But if you’re in Houston on May 2, go to the opening of Meals I’ve Loved, paintings by dear friend of TAoN Amy C. Evans.
How having a daily, modest project can be a “creative pressure valve.”
Loud Numbers: “Just as data can be visualised by turning it into bars, lines and colours, it can also be sonified – turned into pitches, volume levels and audio effects.”
The case against keeping a diary.
“Charming collages made from found ephemera, by Anja Brunt.”
A nice project, via Street Art Utopia: The sea starts here ….
OKAY THAT’S IT!
As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.
—> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.
And thanks for reading …
rw
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All this by Rob Walker PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032. Send me mail!
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A squirrel census! That will stay with me as an image. Thanks for including the prompt.
This is hilarious