Saturday, October 13, 2018

ALL YOU DIDN'T NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RED SQUIRRELS

      I have had a red squirrel in my neighbor's big spruce tree for 20 years or more. The cones in this old tree are mature so there's lots of good food. Then there's a silly guy who has a bird feeder right beside the big spruce so it's free food. A squirrel has been busy  storing food since mid August. Today it's still gathering cones.

     Now this week I kept noticing a squirrel in the middle of the street. It's been looking my way and comes up to the side walk and then runs back and hides under a car. I was wondering what my squirrel was doing in the middle of the street. I kept saying get off the street or some car will run over you.

    Then one morning I noticed a squirrel in my yard giving the squirrel in the street a dirty look. Squirrels are territorial and very protective of their area. Some poor little squirrel had obviously been forced out of it's home territory and was looking for another home. Usually all the fighting is done by the beginning of July so I was surprised to see this lost squirrel. 

    Now some of the squirrels in my tree were female and had litters. What happens is that the mother squirrel moves after her litter becomes independent. She leaves her territory to a daughter and finds another area for her next year and litter. It's thought that this occurs to let the daughter stay in the  familiar home territory as she would have a higher possibility of surviving and having her own litter. 

   So the little guy I saw was probably the runt of some litter and was having trouble to find it's own territory. Many of these animals perish and do not survive their first year. They have accidents like getting run over on the street. They get diseases. There's also predation. In the wild pine martins catch squirrels almost exclusively. 

    Now I haven't seen the squirrel that was looking for a home for a few days. It's probably moved to try to find another territory.

    There's the 2017 version of the red squirrel. It's enjoying the food from the silly guy's bird feeder.

I am being very carefully watched.

These two photos were taken through my kitchen window.

36 comments:

  1. I love your squirrel story! I hope that little guy found a new home. We have a lot of squirrels in our backyard and they often come up on our deck. Our two house cats love watching them and will come running if they hear you say "squirrel".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Animals in the wild have a difficult time to survive.

      Delete
  2. Poor squirrel. I hope he finds a new home. I learned a lot about squirrels in your post today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would hope it finds a place but it's too late to store food for the winter.

      Delete
  3. Wow! I had no idea! We had gray squirrels in Illinois. They loved our oak and chestnut trees. It seemed as though we always had a million squirrels dashing about on the ground, on top our roof and around the tree trunks. I don't think I ever saw them fight or maybe they were and I didn't know it because they seemed to be playing, chasing each other all over the place.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A chestnut tree is an awesome source of food.

      Delete
  4. They are adorable little scallywags! I love their feistiness!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, they can misbehave and cause damage.

      Delete
  5. Years ago a friend lived in an area with a particularly large number of squirrels. I became quite fond of them. I didn't know that much about their life cycle.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These little guys are not something I'd want to pet or become friendly with. they can become quite nasty.

      Delete
  6. Interesting lesson on squirrel behavior. There are occasional fights in our back yard. I saw one with great big tufts of fur out of his/her back, felt quite sorry for it but that's squirrel life I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I saw one with a broken tale. Now squirrels use their tales

      Delete
  7. Hello, now you have me feeling sorry for the squirrels. That poor little runt, I hope he finds his way. Happy Sunday, enjoy your day and have a great new week ahead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a little late in the season to get a supply of food. I wish it luck.

      Delete
  8. I like how you watch your neighborhood squirrel families. They have such interesting behaviors.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We had one a few years ago that was very nasty. I sometimes thought she'd chase me out of my yard.

      Delete
  9. Well, Red, you are right. I didn't know any of that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's more to their moving around in the summer. males have different patterns.

      Delete
  10. We have both gray and black squirrels around here, and they don't like each other. A neighbor has a walnut tree and the squirrels carted them to their hideouts and gave each other a wide berth. Thanks to your post, I now know why. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We don't have gray or black squirrels here.

      Delete
  11. Thanks for the red squirrel info, I never knew that. I have never seen a red squirrel before either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think red squirrels are more in the boreal forest region of Canada.

      Delete
  12. I know they're quite territorial. I had a chance to photograph one here earlier today along the shores of a lake.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They do stand and pose. They are curious and will watch you.

      Delete
  13. I learned something about red squirrels. We only have gray squirrels here in our yard. I wonder if you have the same habits.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We don't have the gray or black squirrels here.

      Delete
  14. Red squirrels were a first for me as well, Red. Only seen gray ones here in Nashua, NH, but I did know that they can be territorial. Today, I saw something I didn't know, one was swimming across a nearby canal.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now the swimming would be different. I think you saw something that doesn't happen very often.

      Delete
  15. A lot of this information was new to me. Just goes to show you that we never stop learning. Squirrels do indeed have a tough life.

    ReplyDelete
  16. They are fun to watch, but clean out my feeders sometimes. I just buy extra.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thank you for the squirrel lesson. Until now I had simply not realised that the reason Red squirrels have that name is that their cute little faces look just like yours!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Would that silly guy with the feeder happen to be a blogger we know? :)

    We have red squirrels here, too. They are very entertaining and can be destructive, but a person would have to be missing a heart to not be moved by your story here. Poor little guy; I hope he find a food source and some real estate.

    ReplyDelete
  19. This is interesting. We don't have squirrels here so I knoow nothing about them.
    One time I was in rural Arkansas where there was an awful lot of squirrel road kill. I was quite confused at first by these strange, flattened little beasties

    ReplyDelete
  20. I really enjoyed reading this, squirrels have given us hours of entertainment and all it cost was a bag of peanuts every month lol, such personalities they have!

    ReplyDelete
  21. I didn't know a lot of these squirrel facts! That poor little runt squirrel. Nature is harsh! Hopefully he'll find a lonely tree somewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I hope the new guy found a home, preferably one without a squirrel proof bird feeder for easy pickin's. We had between five and seven gray squirrels in our yard all summer, two with bright red tails. Now we are down to two and I don't know where the red tails have gone.

    ReplyDelete