OUTDOOR CORNER: TRACKING THE SQUIRREL FACTS

A quick gray form jumps off the fence, races across the lawn and scampers up a tree.

Your bird feeder is raided repeatedly by a furry, four-footed bandit. Loud chattering comes from above you in your yard, you look up and see a little animal sitting upright on a branch with a large bushy tail. Ok, you guessed it! It's a squirrel.

You may have guessed this on the first sentence. After all, squirrels are a familiar sight in cities, towns and forests. Anywhere you find trees, you are likely to find squirrels. They are the most arboreal (tree-living) rodent. Squirrels are rodents, along with chipmunks, prairie dogs, gophers, rats, mice and beavers.

Rodents have large front teeth for gnawing, then a gap, and then chewing teeth (more like molars) toward the rear of their mouth. The front teeth grow continually, but are worn down as the animal gnaws on wood, nuts and seeds.

Across the U.S. there are many species of squirrels and their close relatives. In Missouri however, the arboreal squirrels include only gray squirrels, fox squirrels, and southern flying squirrels. All may be very abundant in any given locale, but chances are you have never seen a flying squirrel because they are active mostly at night. On the other hand, gray and fox squirrels can be seen every day in a city park or in your back yard.

Fox squirrels are larger than gray squirrels and have a reddish yellow coat. Gray squirrels have a gray back, white underparts, and may have some yellow-brown coloring on the head, back, and sides. Other than that, these two squirrels are very similar. They both have a large bushy tail, back feet with five toes, front feet with four toes and one offset toe pad like a dew claw on a dog. The long, flexible toes have claws which enable the squirrel to cling precariously to tree bark, or small branches.

A squirrel's legs have very free and wide range of motion which allows for agile movement and jumping. They can quickly race through a tree's canopy, jumping from one limb to another, to other trees and to nearby telephone poles and wires. The squirrel's tail is used for balance and even provides some sailing action when the squirrel jumps through the air.

A squirrel's eyes are positioned differently than a human's. They are set more to the side of the head which provides them a greater range of vision and allows them to see predators which are to their rear as well as in front of them. They have some binocular vision (both eyes working together) which allows them to perceive depth and distance. The position of the eyes allows them to do this exceedingly well, which is also important for jumping from branch to branch.

However, they would probably not see fine detail at close range as humans can with our eyes positioned in the front of our heads.

Even when you don't see a squirrel, you may see other signs of squirrels, such as leaf nests, piles of broken nutshells, and small holes dug to bury nuts. Squirrels make two kinds of homes, leaf nests and dens.

The leaf nests are easily visible in the winter when the leaves are off the trees. These nests are built from leafy twigs which the squirrel clips off of tree branches. The squirrel gathers a number of these twigs on a branch and then begins to work them together using feet and teeth. Once a ball of twigs is formed, the squirrel pushes inside the ball and turns round and round inside, forming a hollow.

Squirrels also make homes in tree cavities and sometimes in nest boxes. Both types of homes are padded and lined with shredded bark, grass, and leaves for comfort and insulation from cold temperatures.

Squirrels may breed in December and January with young being born in February or March. A second breeding season starts in May and ends in July, but not all squirrels breed during both seasons. The mother cares for the young squirrels, which are furless, blind and deaf at birth and do not fend for themselves for about two months. The mother squirrel nurses the young during this time and after the first two weeks is probably on an extra active food search to feed those hungry little ones.

Hickory nuts, acorns, walnuts and pecans are important foods for squirrels. These are often stored up in the fall by burying or by piling them in the crook of a tree. Corn is also eaten as a large part of the diet where it is available. In the spring, squirrels will eat the buds of trees.

Other foods include berries, seeds, and mushrooms and osage orange fruits. Squirrels often sit on a stump or other perch and eat their food. They drop the remains of their foods below them, often forming little piles of broken shells or other debris.

Squirrels may seem so common that perhaps we yawn and ignore them, but they are very active, interesting creatures and can be a lot of fun to watch. They provide a wildlife element in cities and towns and co-exist fairly well with humans.

The information for this article was taken from The Wild Mammals of Missouri and About Mammals and How They Live, both by Charles and Elizabeth Schwartz. The latter book provides excellent reading and fascinating information on mammal homes, food and habits. It is not only good for adult readers, but also very appropriate, with illustrations, etc., for upper elementary readers. It can be purchased at MDC's Southeast Regional Office in Cape Girardeau.

Janeen Laatsch is a natural history regional biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation.