If you live near a park, or even just a tree, you’ve
probably noticed how busy the squirrels are this time of year. I’ve been
watching them scurry about looking for acorns outside my office (no, this isn’t
my day job) and getting into fights. In another one of those perfectly timed
connections in the natural world, the acorns are dropping with the temperature
and giving squirrels a feast to carry them through the lean winter months.
The eastern gray squirrel is the dominant squirrel
species in my neck of the woods. Others that I’ve seen in my journeys are the
Douglas squirrel and golden mantled ground squirrel in Washington and Oregon,
the American red squirrel in South Dakota and Alaska, and I even saw a black squirrel in
Minnesota. The black one was actually an eastern gray squirrel with a condition
called melanism, which is sort of a reverse albino.
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| Douglas squirrel |
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| Golden mantled ground squirrel |
Squirrels are one of my favorite critters. They are
rodents and belong the family sciuridae. Several species of squirrels have a
scientific name beginning with Sciurus and I just love that. Every time I see
sciurus it makes me think of scurry, which is what those little guys do when
they aren’t climbing trees.
Rodents have front teeth (incisors) that never stop
growing. It’s great for beavers, since chomping on trees all night will quickly
wear out their teeth. It is also helpful when you’re just a tiny little thing
eating nuts and acorns. If you’ve ever gotten close enough to a squirrel to see
its teeth, they are frighteningly large considering the size of animal attached
to them.
Squirrels spend a lot of their time in trees, and they
are agile climbers but they occasionally have an accident. You didn’t hear it
from me, but a squirrel in the park fell into the creek once back in the 90s.
It made me promise not to tell, and it’s probably dead by now but it’s best not
to take chances.
All those nuts and acorns the squirrels are gathering
now are too much for a meal and won’t fit inside a squirrel house. So they hide
their overstock from other critters that might want them by burying them in the
ground. With so many nuts hidden in so many holes, there’s no way a squirrel
will remember each hole. The ones that get left behind stand a chance of
germinating and growing into trees. So not only are squirrels terribly cute,
they are also little horticulturalists.
In addition to your basic tree squirrels, there are
also ground squirrels. The ground squirrel side of the family includes marmots,
groundhogs, chipmunks, and prairie dogs. While they get their name from their
dwelling, ground squirrels are not averse to climbing trees.
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| Western chipmunk |
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