Roseanne Van Ee
Okanagan鈥檚 Nature Nut
Looking for some fall entertainment?
Our sassy little red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) can provide you with lots.
They鈥檙e dependent on conifer seeds as their main food source and are gathering them like crazy right now. But an astonishing 85 per cent of our red squirrels diet in volume is mushrooms.
Since most mushrooms sprout in the fall, our squirrels are now busy gathering edible ones and air drying them for winter storage. Look up and around the forest in the fall and you might see their mushrooms on branches on warm, breezy days.
They even store truffles.
Squirrels, and other wildlife with powerfully sensory noses, smell truffles and dig them out to eat. Look for shallow holes dug into banks below trees in the forest especially after rain in the fall. You can easily spot these diggings along the Cross Mountain Trail at Silver Star.
Red squirrels are our native tree squirrels.
They鈥檙e about half the size of urban grey squirrels.
They鈥檙e rusty-red with white bellies, bushy tails tipped with black hairs, tufted ears and a distinctive white eye-ring.
They鈥檙e diurnal, generally solitary and very territorial chattering with a loud 鈥渢chrrrr!鈥� while flicking their bushy tails from high in the trees, scolding and warning intruders and would-be mushroom thieves to go away.
These omnivorous squirrels also feed on seeds, nuts, buds, berries, leaves, twigs, cambium, insects and occasionally carrion, eggs, baby birds and rodents.
But their preference is spruce, pine and fir cones 鈥� a gnawed cone is a sure sign of squirrels.
They鈥檙e cone-shuckers; quickly turning the cone with their long 鈥渇ingers鈥� while eating the seeds and dropping the scales, and then the cob, onto a trash heap 鈥渕idden鈥� at the base of their favourite coniferous trees.
This piles up over the years. You can see holes in the middens where tunnels lead to their stored food and sometimes they go down to rest.
They鈥檙e constantly on the alert for owls and hawks above, weasels, coyotes and lynx on the ground and pine martens in the trees. Plus they鈥檙e always on the lookout for other squirrels invading their middens or territory.
Our red squirrels prefer natural cavities in large, old trees with dense branches for nesting and occasionally build branch nests.
These branch breeding and resting nests, usually built high up in mature white spruce trees close to the trunk, are called dreys. They are masses made from almost any available suitable material including twigs, moss, shredded bark, pine needles, feathers and leaves.
Red squirrels will also occasionally burrow into their middens to rest.
Thankfully we still have these boisterous native red squirrels living wild in B.C.鈥檚 coniferous and mixed forest habitats year-round from sea level to subalpine forests almost everywhere throughout most of the province.
They prefer forest habitat and move out when urban development takes over. Unfortunately development and destruction of our wild forests is responsible for our native squirrel population declines.
Look for red squirrels during quieter times of the day 鈥� mornings or later in the afternoon. Even better, stay overnight at a campsite and go red squirrel spotting after all the other visitors have gone home.
You can often watch, photograph or video them eating their 鈥渃one on the cob鈥� then finishing off their meal by grooming themselves 鈥� first their face, whiskers and paws, then the rest of their body and finally their tail gets a good cleaning, combing and fluffing.
It鈥檚 all fun and amusing to watch.
I鈥檒l write more about our endearing red squirrels this winter. It鈥檚 so fun to watch them while skiing or snowshoeing through the forest.
Roseanne Van Ee enthusiastically shares her knowledge of the outdoors to help readers experience and enjoy nature. Follow her on Facebook.
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