Country Views - Feeding the squirrels

By Tim King

We have bird feeders outside of two of our windows. They’re fairly popular with a range of bird species from the tiny seed-eating Gold Finches to the huge suet-devouring Pileated Woodpecker. There is also, occasionally a Barred Owl, attracted by the deer mice and cottontails who visit in search of apple pieces that get tossed out the door. Sometimes a Sharpshinned Hawk visits with hope of capturing one of those tiny, seed-eating finches.

It can get crazy out there, especially if a troupe of wild turkeys parade through. Oh, I shouldn’t forget the deer that come by around dusk.

Like most people we also have squirrels at the feeder. In fact, we may, at times, have a squirrel feeder that birds visit. Many people who feed birds feed squirrels against their better wishes. Efforts to protect bird seed range from simple store bought contraptions that rarely work to amazing home-made Rube Goldberg-style inventions that occasionally succeed at keeping the bushy-tailed rodents out of a feeder.

But we gave up. In light of the near impossibility of keeping squirrels away from the bird seed we decided to feed them as well. Besides, if we were to eliminate the squirrels the whole ecological structure of our bird feeder, with its diversity of species, might collapse.

Having accepted squirrels into the family that constitutes our feeder, I’ve become a student of them. What I can tell you so far is that we have four species – black, gray, red, and fox.

It turns out black squirrels aren’t really a separate species. They are really black versions of the Eastern Gray Squirrel, which is the official name our Gray Squirrel. They might also be a black Fox Squirrel. There is speculation among squirrel experts (yes, there are experts) that the genetic tendency to go dark in these two species gives them an advantage in cold climates like ours.

That’s probably true because, as I write, there is a Black Squirrel sunbathing on the stub of a southerly oak  branch outside my window. Her back is tucked against the tree trunk so she’s fully protected from the north and facing south, basking in the mid-afternoon sun.

Although the black squirrel on a branch is momentarily at peace, Blacks and Grays both love a brawl. There will be a group of them peacefully vacuuming up sunflower seeds with their tiny hand-like paws and ever-so-sharp rodent teeth. Each of them will have their tail curled majestically over their backs and, at its base it will be twitching like an electrical switch. On! Off! On, and then something in the precarious balance, not visible to the human  eye, will shift and the squirrels will explode into an airborne brawl reminiscent of the Key Stone Cops.

When they aren’t brawling or sunbathing, Gray and Black squirrels spend considerable amounts of time either burying food or spying on their neighbors to see where they are burying food. Those experts I mentioned earlier must spend a lot of time spying on squirrels too because they have estimated that a Gray Squirrel buries between 1,000 to 2,000 caches of nuts each year. Some of these caches may be fake, however. If a squirrel suspects its neighbor of spying on it while caching some nuts, so as to burglarize them later, they will pretend to bury something and then go somewhere else with a mouth full of nuts.

This cloak-and-dagger activity doesn’t seem to interest the occasional Fox Squirrel that visits us. In fact, even though Fox Squirrels are the biggest of all tree squirrels, they aren’t interested in brawling either. There are said to be black Fox Squirrels in the Missouri River Valley, but those that live in Central Minnesota are mostly gray on top with a striking foxy red underbelly.

Gray and Black Squirrels are true tree squirrels and they can scamper through the tree tops like trapeze performers. Fox Squirrels are considered tree squirrels, but they often forage some distance from the nearest tree. My guess is that, in olden time, they preferred lightly forested oak and pine savannas.

In recent years a small population of American Red Squirrels has developed near our bird feeder. Although there is evidence that Red Squirrels have moved into hardwood forests, I think these squirrels are here because plantings of Spruce and Pine have matured on either side of the bird feeder. Seeds from these conifers are usually the favorite food of these anti-social and solitary little squirrels. They don’t brawl communally or even stop to eat with the other squirrels. When we see them they are just passing through between conifer stands.

All in all, we’ve found squirrel feeding to be entertaining and educational.