The Gray Squirrel

by Sinead O'Kitty

The squirrel is a medium-sized rodent. It’s bigger than a mouse and smaller than a weasel. Squirrels come in two colors—gray and red—and live in urban and rural areas. The gray squirrel is much more common than the red squirrel, and it is also bigger in size. Gray squirrels have long, bushy tails that help them keep their balance when running across narrow surfaces and provide warmth in cold winters. Squirrels are very agile and can climb and walk on almost any surface. In towns and cities, they can often be seen running across power lines and tree branches, and sometimes even jumping from tree to tree. They like to run across roofs and porches and lawns, too. Like most rodents, the squirrel has a pair of big teeth in the front of its mouth for gnawing on the nuts and fruits that it eats. They have little “hands” with tiny opposable thumbs that allow them to hold nuts as they gnaw on them. Squirrels will often pick up more food than they can eat at one time; they store this food in pouches in their cheeks and bring them to a safe place for storage or eating. Squirrels store food because in the winter, they hibernate. In the autumn, squirrels find all the nuts and seeds they can, and then they hide them in their nests and in other caches around their territory. Nuts and seeds are high in fat, and squirrels gain a lot of weight as the fall moves into the winter. Both their nut caches and the fat they store from eating so much help them survive long, cold winters. Squirrels live in little nests in trees. Usually these nests are inside holes in trees (where the wood has rotted and made a little cave), but city squirrels are very resourceful and have been known to make nests in pipes, vents, and under the eaves of roofs. In the spring or early summer, female squirrels give birth to tiny little squirrel babies. When the babies get old enough, they get to wander out of their nests—under their parents’ supervision, of course—and learn how to do the gymnastic feats their parents and other adult squirrels do. Humans and cats find squirrels very entertaining to watch. Some humans even leave out nuts and food items for the squirrels to eat so they can watch the squirrels play. However, other humans consider squirrels to be pests because they get into bird feeders and houses—places where they do not belong. Squirrels, like all rodents, are a very important part of the ecosystem. The fact that they eat nuts and excrete seeds in places far from where they landed helps trees grow far away from their “parent” trees and makes the trees’ gene pool more diverse. They are also a link in the food chain. Predators such as fishers (giant carnivorous weasel-type animals), cats and hunting birds eat squirrels, so squirrels provide a way to help other animals live and raise their young. All in all, there is a lot to appreciate and know about the common gray squirrel.