Red Squirrels make many funny noises

By Al Lowe
Contributor

Do you remember those old children's stories about Reddy Fox, Sammy Jay, and all the rest? Well, in those, our subject was always referred to as Chatterer the Red Squirrel. An apt name indeed. Quick, vivacious, noisy, nervous, nervy, bold, curious, he is present throughout all of the wooded areas of Canada.
The Red Squirrel is generally reddish in colour, naturally, although a good deal of his fur is actually grey. He has a white throat, chest and belly, and most of the time, a black stripe along his sides. Actually, this animal changes colour with the seasons. In summer, the back and sides are rather olivey, but in winter the red predominates.
The Red Squirrel is very territorial. That means that it establishes an area for itself, which it considers its very own. It will drive out all the intruders which it can tackle, including its much larger cousin, the Grey Squirrel. Jays are particularly detested, and are chased off viciously, along with any other birds which eat the same things that squirrels eat.
Almost all predators eat squirrels - hawks, owls, weasels, snakes, foxes, and especially those large tree-running weasels, the marten and the fisher. This squirrel in turn, has a lot of variety in its eating habits. One reference says that it will eat anything which doesn't eat it. Diet includes all kinds of seeds, especially of conifers, nuts, bark, fruit, eggs, young birds, mice, insects and frogs. It will cut bark to get sap, and will hang mushrooms up to dry, for future use. Somehow, it is able to eat the deadly poisonous Amanita without any ill effects.
The Red Squirrel doesn't hibernate. It does store food for the winter, as every schoolboy knows. In particular, it stores pine cones. These may be stored in holes, buried in soil, or simply piled up. Piles containing several bushels of cones are sometimes found. These are called middens. The same name is applied to a pile of refuse after the cones have been eaten.
This animal makes more funny noises than most. It has a wide assortment of grunts, chucks, squeaks, scoldings, of course, that prolonged 'chirring' which sounds like a cheap alarm clock going off. Most of these sounds are accompanied by jerking of the tail, stamping of feet, and quick, jerky little runs from one point to another.
If you are only a casual visitor to the woods in winter, the Red Squirrel, Tamiasciurius hunsonicus, is very likely the only mammal you will see. For any mammal which has so many enemies, and is so very noisy, it is surprising that there are so many of them around.