As I wrote this morning, I noticed yesterday that the squirrels near Jefferson Park Golf Course are unusually big. Also, they did not hop about in their usual shivery fashion, but sat on a spot and plain stuffed their faces. When you passed them, they did not notice you. The abundance of food had made them that stupid.

Apparently, these Beacon Hill squirrels, which tend to be aggressive, are sharing the same dumb luck with thousands of others in the US and the UK. It's a mild winter, thanks to El Niño and global warming, and this has resulted in the easy availablity of food at a time when it's normally too cold and too hard to find.

But the winter that's making these rodents so happy (you should have seen their faces) is making retailers like Macy's sad. They have lots of winter jackets to sell and no cold people out there to buy them. Indeed, some of Macy's finacial woes and store closings are being blamed on this warm winter. Sears was apparently also hurt by it.

Squirrels like nuts, fruit, bark, bird food, and eggs.