This is how friendly the squirrels are at my daughter's local Park.

Dave.

Dave, that is awesome.

When we lived in Oxford we had a colony of squirrels who came round for regular food hand-outs but none came as close as that one.

Last summer we had a baby red squirrel who was driven away from the feeding rock in our back woods in a territorial war, and was forced to the shore to starve or get picked off by a hawk.

He was desperate and weak from hunger and had an ear bite injury too. A potato chip blew off hubby's lunch plate and he snapped it up so I decided to feed him alone on our dock area.

That first day he was a bottomless pit... and then became so tired and torpid he just crashed on the dock. With me there it was not likely a hawk or eagle would get him.
This is a photo of him just lying there... stuffed with food.

the second photo is of him eating the chip.

the third photo shows Perry next to the small yogurt cup I kept
his seeds in...it sometimes blew off the dock. It shows how small he was when we started to help him out.

I fed him some sunflower seeds each day-I sprinkled them on the wooden boards...twice a day and he would hide under the boards of the dock for safety. After about a week he grew and became stronger and more confident, so I do hope he survived the coming winter. He and a litter mate were right out of the nest in mid August. That litter mate really was a bully too.
I named him our little hungry one, Perry... and tried not to tame him. But he would sit at my feet patiently waiting for his serving of sunflower seeds. He never approached my husband though.

I have a squirrel that likes to eat the peanuts I throw out for the blue jays.

I noticed this morning that he was on the back patio area :eek: scary because the cats are always hanging around! I opened the door and thought he would just run away but he stood up! Just stood there looking at me!

He did leave after a minute and I stopped throwing peanuts so close to the patio area. I don't want a sneaky cat to grab him because he seems so unafraid.

When my DS comes over later I'll ask him to put a bag full of peanuts way out in the backyard to try and keep him away from the patio area. He sure is a cutie, though.