Flying Squirrels February 13, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in mammals.Tags: Family Sciuridae, Flying Squirrels, Glaucomys sabrinus, Glaucomys volans, Northern Flying Squirrel, Order Rodentia, rodents, Southern Flying Squirrel, squirrels
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Here’s an unusual photo by Dave Bonta:
It’s unusual because Flying Squirrels are generally nocturnal… in fact they are the only nocturnal squirrel here in Western New York.
The ranges of two species of Flying Squirrel overlap in the northeast USA. The Northern Flying Squirrel (Glaucomus sabrinus) is slightly larger than the Southern Flying Squirrel (G. volans). If you sandwich the Eastern Chipmunk between them, you have our 3 smallest squirrels in order of size with the Southern Flying Squirrel being the smallest.
Both species are omnivorous. Both will build twig-leaf nests, though they prefer tree cavities. Neither hibernates, and neither truly flies. Glides are achieved through the aid of the patagium, a fold of skin that stretches from wrist to ankle and is supported by a bit of cartiledge that extends the skin slightly beyond the foot. This skin essentially turns the squirrel into a kite that can glide great distances compared to its body size. The average glide of a Northern Squirrel is 66 feet, and that of the Southern 20-30 feet.
Based on where Dave lives and the apparent size of the squirrel in his picture above, I would guess it is the southern species, though I can’t be sure. Here’s one from Sue in northern Ontario that I would guess is the northern species:
If we could tickle their bellies, we would find the hairs on the Southern to be all white, while those on the northern are darker at the base and light at the tips.
Northern
Total Length: 10-12 inches
Tail Length: 4-6 inches
Weight: 2.5-4.5 ounces
Average Lifespan: 3-4 years
Southern
Total Length: 9-10 inches
Tail Length: 3-4.5 inches
Weight: 2-3 ounces
Average Lifespan: 5 years
That’s the end of my squirrel series… Hope you enjoyed it! Should I give you a quiz now?
Eastern Fox Squirrel February 12, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in mammals.Tags: Eastern Fox Squirrel, Family Sciuridae, Order Rodentia, rodents, Sciurus niger, squirrels
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Fox Squirrels are really pretty and a little bigger than Gray Squirrels. They also like deciduous trees, but prefer areas where there is more open space beneath them.
Curiously, the Eastern Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger) does not range much into Canada. Kurta says that there is a small, introduced populuation on Pelee Island in Lake Erie, and another small population in southern Manitoba.
Total Length: 20-23 inches
Tail Length: 9-10 inches
Weight: 25-39 ounces
Average Lifespan: 1-2 years
Fox squirrels eat the buds, flowers and fruits of maple, elm, willow and other trees, berries, grapes and cherries, and the occasional grub, caterpillar, egg, or young bird.
Like the Gray Squirrel, Fox Squirrels scatter hoard nuts in preparation for winter. Whereas the Grays retrieve up to 85% of the stored nuts, Fox Squirrels are reported to retrieve 99% of their winter cache.
Eastern Gray Squirrel February 11, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in mammals.Tags: Eastern Gray Squirrel, Family Sciuridae, Order Rodentia, rodents, Sciurus carolinensis, squirrels
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While Red Squirrels prefer conifers, the Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) prefers mature deciduous trees that produce a good food crop… Hickory, walnut, maple or beech. Being rather adaptable, Eastern Grays can be happy out in the woods, or in your backyard, provided these trees are abundant enough.
Total Length: 17-20 inches
Tail Length: 7-10 inches
Weight: 12-25 ounces
Average Lifespan: 2 years or less
Like chipmunks and red squirrels, Gray Squirrels cache food for winter. Unlike the smaller squirrels, however, Grays bury nuts singly, scattered. In addition to nuts, they will eat mushrooms, insects, seeds, buds, flowers, and fruits.
They rarely travel more than 300 yards from their nest tree which is preferably a 12-inch deep cavity in the trunk, especially for winter shelter and for raising babies. If no cavities are available, a loose nest may be built on a sturdy branch from twigs still bearing leaves.
A totally black melanistic phase of the Eastern Gray Squirrel is not uncommon. Though it is the same species, many folks refer to it as Black Squirrel.
Red Squirrels February 10, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in mammals.Tags: Family Sciuridae, Order Rodentia, Red Squirrel, rodents, squirrels, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus
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While Red Squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) can be found in purely deciduous woods, they prefer coniferous forests – or at least a hardwood forest with some conifers because their favorite food is seeds extracted from pine cones. In fact, they have a curious habit of going to the same eating perch repeatedly to rip scale after scale from cones to get at the seeds. If you ever see a pile of pinecone scales in the woods, you can bet Red Squirrels have been eating there. Poke around in the pile and you will also find the “cores” of pinecones – stripped bare of all scales. It reminds me of corn cobs after a summer picnic!
Total Length: 11-14 inches
Tail Length: 4-6 inches
Weight: 5-9 ounces
Average Lifespan: 2-3 years
Red Squirrels also eats buds, seeds, fruits, and mushrooms. They seem to have a sweet tooth, as they will bite through the bark of a maple tree in spring allowing the sap to run. As it trickles down the tree, water evaporates from the sap leaving a sticky, sweet treat, which Red comes back for in a few days. In addition to these plant sources, Red Squirrels also eat insects, birds, mice, voles, and young rabbits.
If you enter Red Squirrel territory, you are apt to be scolded with a loud continuous chick-chick-chick. (I remember getting a serious scolding once while setting up my tent near an Eastern Hemlock tree… Eventually he decided to allow my presence, but it was clear he didn’t like it!)
Red Squirrels prefer to nest in a tree cavity, but if none can be found, they will weave a basketball-sized nest in the branches of trees from leaves and twigs. Occasionally, they will nest on or underground, especially in winter.
Two cool vocabulary words related to Red Squirrels:
- Midden – the pile of “trash” (pinecone scales and cores) left behind from eating pinecone seeds.
- Cache – the pile of stored food Red Squirrels stash just before winter – sometimes at the base of a tree, sometimes underground.
Eastern Chipmunk February 9, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in mammals.Tags: Eastern Chipmunk, Family Sciuridae, Order Rodentia, rodents, squirrels, Tamius striatus
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I love watching chipmunks… I know that their behaviours are most likely all related to survival… but sometimes they just seem so playful. And how can this – one of our smallest squirrels – be so loud in the woods? When they rustle through dry leaves you would swear a much larger animal is nearby.
The first time someone told me that the fun cluck-cluck-cluck sound I heard in the woods – a sort of a cross between a chirp and a chuck – was from a chipmunk, I simply did not believe him. But one day, I watched a little chippie making that sound. (You can hear it by clicking here.)
Total Length: 9-10.5 inches
Tail Length: 2.5-4 inches
Weight: 2-4 ounces
Average Lifespan: less than 2 years
Eastern Chipmunks (Tamius striatus) are omnivorous supplementing their diet of nuts and seeds with earthworms, slugs, insects, bird eggs, and baby birds. Unable to lay down fat stores in the body like a true hibernator, chipmunks store dried foods in underground homes for consumption in winter. The pouches in in a chipmunk’s cheeks can expand to the size of its head and hold hundreds of seeds.
Chipmunks enter temporary states of torpor throughout the winter, but they can be seen on mild winter days foraging for food in the woods or at your birdfeeder.
Here’s a good link, geared at kids:
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/cgkids/animal/2007_07.asp
Groundhogs February 8, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in mammals.Tags: Family Sciuridae, Groundhog, Marmot, Marmot momax, Order Rodentia, rodents, Squirrel, Whistling Pig, Woodchuck
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OK, I’ll admit it. I was pretty surprised to learn that groundhogs are squirrels. Somehow, this chunky fellow who spends most of his time on or under the ground is just so different from the arborial squirrels that it would never occur to me to put them in the same family… Still… they do have that post-orbital process… so go figure!
Of all our western New York squirrels, this one is largest and has the most names. Groundhog and Woodchuck, of course. The Latin name Marmota momax undoubtedly led to the common name Marmot, and its tendency to make a shrill whistling sound when it is startled led to Whistling Pig.
Total Length: 21-26 inches
Tail Length: 4-6 inches
Weight: 5-11 pounds
Average Lifespan: 2.5-3 years
Groundhogs are true hibernators and “sleep” in underground tunnels from October through March or April. (Yeah, and they don’t come out on February 2nd, either…) When they emerge, they eat bark, buds, and twigs until their preferred food of grasses and herbaceous plants are plentiful. Farmers and gardeners know that they are pretty fond of food crops, too. And as you can see from Ruth‘s photo at right, Groundhogs CAN climb trees!
Rodents and Squirrels February 7, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in mammals.Tags: Family Sciuridae, Order Rodentia, rodent, squirrels
12 comments
The best way to learn something is to teach it. This week, I had to teach a lesson on squirrels…
Forty percent of all the mammals worldwide are in the Order Rodentia or Rodents, over 2,000 species.
To be a rodent, you must have four incisors in front – two top and two bottom – which never stop growing throughout your life. As you gnaw on things, they wear down, so the constant growth is necessary. These incisors have a hard enamel on the front with softer material behind which makes them wear unevenly resulting in sharp, chisel-like edges. The faces of your front teeth are yellow or orange.
Porcupines are rodents, but they aren’t squirrels.
Behind the incisors there is a gap with no teeth at all. The gap is called the diastema. In back you have “cheek teeth”. The bones and muscles in your jaw are arranged in such a way that you can either gnaw with your incisors, or chew with your cheek teeth… but you can’t do both at the same time.
Of all the rodents worldwide, a little over 10% are in the Family Sciuridae – Squirrels – around 270 species.
If you were a squirrel, you would have 4 cheek teeth on each side of the top of your jaw and 4 or 5 on each side of the bottom jaw, depending on species.
You would also have a well-defined post-orbital process. Hunh? What’s that, you say? Well, on the top of your skull, just behind each eye, there is a slender, sometimes pointy projection from the frontal bone and skull-studying nature nerds (and I use that phrase with the utmost affection) call it a post-orbital process.
Woodchuck and chipmunk skulls both have post-orbital processes.
There. Now you know how to tell if you are a rodent or not, and specifically if you are a squirrel or not.
Learn more:
The information for this post comes mostly from Allen Kurta’s excellent book Mammals of the Great Lakes Region, available from the University of Michigan Press. There are 10 species of squirrels in his book, but only 7 of them live where I live.
Over the next few days, I’ll tell you about “my” squirrels…
Lolli’s Great Adventure January 4, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in hiking, mammals, outdoor recreation.Tags: Procyon lotor, raccoon
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Yesterday was a great day for a walk along the Chautauqua Creek. We carried the snowshoes in, thinking that we might need them for deep snow down in the gorge, but we ended up leaving them near a tree and continuing on with just boots. There were some spots where we sunk in deep… but for the most part, the crusty layer from the thaw and rain of a couple of days ago kept us up on top of the snow.
We walked in as far as as the great ice wall, then decided to turn back.
On our way back out we paused for a brief rest. Suddenly, Lolli goes nuts… digging AND barking.
Lolli often digs. It seems the only time she barks, though, is when she KNOWS she’s got something. The last time this happened here in the gorge she had a porcupine up a tree. Today, I’m hoping it isn’t a skunk…
At the other end of the log from where Lolli is digging, I notice fur… and it’s not black and white. Whew!
As it struggles through a hole in the snow up over the log, I catch a glimpse of the striped tail and realize it’s a young raccoon… quite small.
Once it reaches the other side, it looks up at me, quizzically. It seems confused, but relieved that while I am making a clicking noise with some strange piece of equipment dangling from around my neck, at least I’m not barking.
And then it’s off, over the snow at a rapid pace.
Meanwhile, Lolli is still digging… and by now, Mozart is curious enough to join her. I’m rather surprised that neither of the dogs witnessed the great escape…
Lolli seems truly mystified that she can’t find her quarry.
Better luck next time, puppy dog… On second thought, may your luck continue to be just about like today. Poor little raccoon.
Brambles and Blow-downs and Baby Beeches November 13, 2008
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in autumn, hiking, mammals.Tags: Bergman Park, Red Fox
5 comments
An inevitable condition of my age and gender coupled with a full life has left me too exhausted for romps in the woods for the last month. Today, I have a bit of time and a bit of energy.
I leave before sun-up, which isn’t very early at this time of year. Even if there were sun, the clouds are thick and gray, threatening rain and allowing very little light to reach me. I take the camera anyway.
Lolli is delighted that last night’s promise of a romp in the woods was not idle chat.
It doesn’t seem like it was THAT long ago that I walked this trail. Wild things grow fast. I adopt a strange gait using the outside of my boot in an attempt to crush down the brambles that tear at my gloves and scratch my legs through the thin denim of my old jeans.
In my effort to avoid brambles, I wander off the old trail where I must lift my heavy-clad feet high over blown down tree trunks and branches.
I find myself temporarily lost – a giant towering over a new forest of baby beeches…
The exursion makes me realize I have dressed in too many layers… and I can’t unzip my jacket, because it protects the camera. I take off my hat and enjoy the sensation of near freezing raindrops on the top of my head and on my flushed cheeks. I take off my gloves and stuff them in my pocket.
Lolli walks randomly, weaving this way and that with nose to the ground, sniffing here, there, everywhere. A rustling off the trail causes her ears to perk up and she is gone – purposefully bounding toward… whatever it was… I wonder what she would do if she ever caught up with her quarry?
What’s that flash of white on the right side of the trail up there? Deer? No. Too low to the ground. Lolli sees it, too, and makes chase.
It turns, crosses back over the trail and runs off into the woods on the left. Not quite as tall as Lolli, the fur is the color of the downed beech and oak leaves… but the tip of the tail is bright white. Red Fox.
I wonder how long I’ll be waiting for Lolli to return… and what she’ll smell like when she does… But she doesn’t keep me waiting long… and she smells just fine.
I don’t see foxes very frequently and I always feel quite honored when I do. This the second time I’ve seen Red Fox in these woods.
(I don’t have a fox photo and I hope that Flickr contact Églantine doesn’t mind that I borrowed hers.)
Holts Run – Allegany State Park March 29, 2008
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in hiking, mammals, outdoor recreation, spring.8 comments
Winter lingers on. The snow was deep – but frozen solid and sprinkled with fresh powder providing a nice even surface for an easy walk. The sun shone on ice-covered trees and once again, I was unable to capture their glistening beauty.
Holts Run Road is on the left just past the boat launch at the Quaker exit of Allegany State Park. We drove up the road until it ended, then hiked up the “path”.
Take the word “path” with a grain of salt! There was no path.
There was plenty of evidence of beaver activity. At one point, we chose to climb up into the woods and around a beaver pond. From up on the hill, we had a great view of the pond. Notice the lodge center left, and the dam along the right side of the picture:
This was just one of several ponds with lodges. At another spot in the valley, we found ourselves standing where a beaver pond once had been. The dam had been breached and the creek was flowing through the hole in the dam:
There were plenty of tracks in the snow, including fox, turkey, deer, and squirrel. Our favorite tracks were the bear tracks!
After stopping for a bite to eat and some warm soup, I tried hard not to fall in the creek while still getting some creek photos.
I had hoped to find SOME spring flower blooming… Hepatica maybe?? No… But I found some green right in the middle of the creek… no blossoms yet, still… I think it must be some sort of Bedstraw:
Then I turned 180 degrees to find this ice:
The calendar says spring and I am ready. Winter lingers. And that’s OK. But I’m ready! Ready for different photographic opportunities. Ready to leave the long johns home. Ready for a little warmth. Bring it on!
Holts Run is not a well-marked trail. If you don’t have a good topographic map, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this hike! If you go without a topo, hop over the creek early on and keep the creek and beaver ponds to your left… Once past the biggest ponds, hop back over the creek and keep it on your right. There is a “road” that hasn’t seen much use and is starting to be overgrown… There are some lovely areas out there… And some bears! I might try this trail again in spring… but the brambles… Yikes! Maybe…
