Yellow Tail

One day this past spring we had as many as 12 squirrels  in the yard at one time.  We had gray ones black ones and red ones.  They were everywhere.  We don't seem to have nearly as many now as we did back then.  Maybe 3 or 4 at one time.  But strangely no more gray ones.  Just a few blacks and maybe 3 reds.

The other day I noticed the squirrel you see in the picture above.  He or she has a yellow spot on it's tail.  I thought that was odd, and I was wondering how a squirrel would get a yellow spot on it's tail?
That got me to thinking about an article I had read about the Department of Natural Resources trapping nusiance bears.  They would set a great big trap and catch the bad bear.  They would give the bear an exam and then tag it.  The tag was for identification purposes.  The tags would let them know where and when the bear had been captured, if they came a cross that bear again in the future.

After checking the bear out and tagging it, they would transport it many miles away and then release it.  Low and behold, a short time later that same bear would be right back in the area where it had been causing trouble before.  Somehow that animal was able to find it's way back to the same spot where it had been captured.

You would think that moving a critter miles away in a truck would be the last you would see of that one.  But not so I now know ...........