A white Eastern Gray Squirrel

One of the white (leucistic) Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) that can be locally common in parts of SW North Carolina. While the town of Brevard is famous for their white squirrels, they're elsewhere and this one was imaged near Tryon, about an hour to the east. I wanted to photograph one of these beasts on my recent trip to North Carolina to speak at the amazing Gardening for Life Festival. Thanks to Vivian and Bill for allowing to visit their property, which has melanistic (black), normal gray, and white squirrels! March 30, 2024.
 

Red-tailed Hawk eats Gray Squirrel!

Bright-eyed and bushy tailed, the Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is abundant throughout much of Ohio - certainly in central Ohio, where I made this shot. They are often amusing this time of year, as it's mating season. Soon after winter solstice, the lust to procreate and make more of their kind sets in. Amorous males set to chasing females, and this can put them at risk as their intense focus may cause them to lose track of their surroundings. Just as we notice these wild pursuits, sometimes involving several males hot on the furry heels of a female, so do others. Including formidable predators. I wonder if this is how the protagonist of this post picked off his victim, which apparently let down its guard in some way. But I did not see the actual kill, only the aftermath, of which a brief photo essay follows.

Last Wednesday, January 11, I was traipsing through Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio, on the heels of a Merlin (Falco columbarius). I was with a photographer friend, and we had just finished a nice session with a cooperative Merlin on a dead snag. After it finally flew, we set out on foot to relocate it or another we had seen.

I noticed a slight movement within a bushy part of a maple and Voila! There was an adult Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). We quickly saw it had dispatched and was eating a victim. I made this shot soon after the discovery. While the big raptor is glaring our way, it paid nearly no mind to us. We were respectful of its space, and quiet (quietness seems to be becoming a rare commodity where birders and/or photographers gather).

The bird had bagged a Gray Squirrel and was engaged in preparing and eating its meal. From the looks of things, the raptor had been at its work for a while. Much of the mammal had been defurred already, but in this photo the head is mostly intact. In all, we were able to observe the hawk eating its meal for about a half-hour. At that point, I managed to fill my 128-gigabyte memory card. That's not hard when shooting in burst mode with a 45-megapixel camera and shooting video as well. I would have gone back to the vehicle for another card, but by then the rain was setting in, and it was time to leave.

The red-tail with fresh squirrel meat. It came from the one of the rear legs, the remnants of which can be seen sticking up in front of the bird's left leg.

The raptor starts in on the other hind leg. The de-meated other leg sticks up next to it. The back legs must be a delicacy as they are one of the first things this bird dined upon.

At one point, the hawk went on point and was obviously watching something in the distance. I was sure it was another raptor but try as I might, I could not locate the object of its interest. This red-tail was in fairly thick cover in the lower boughs of a large maple and wasn't very conspicuous from most angles. Therefore, I would think it would have been difficult for it to have a good sightline to distant points. But raptors are nearly magical in their situational awareness and with vision far keener than any human, they don't miss much.

On the way out of the cemetery - which is 160 acres, 2nd largest cemetery in Ohio - I spotted another Red-tailed Hawk, perched in a tree far removed from the squirrel-eater. I'd bet it was this bird flying around that "our" hawk spotted. Another red-tail certainly would have put him on point and monopolized its attention.

As always, click the photo to enlarge :-)

Eventually the hawk got to the head and commenced eating the nose - another delicacy? In this image it has deftly grasped the squirrel's eyelid. Raptors deal with prey like this with surgical precision, using the bill like a scalpel and manipulating and repositioning the prey with those large powerful feet and talons. They are more efficient than most people would be with fork and knife.

If nothing interfered, I'm sure the bird left little but fur and bones. Almost nothing goes to waste. My only regret - and it isn't worth regretting as there is nothing one can do - is that the day was a typical gray leaden Ohio winter day. Light was abysmal as it is so often around here in winter, and it only deteriorated as heavy cold rains moved in. How these scenes would have popped in golden morning sunlight! Ah well, I count myself lucky to have had a ringside seat to a dining Red-tailed Hawk. He was still there feeding away when we departed.

Here's a brief video of the red-tailed feeding. I was hoping that the snaps and cracks of tendons and muscles separating would come through, but the camera didn't seem to pick those up. I could hear it, though, and the sound effects added interest to the experience.

Gray squirrel and its unusual drey a source of enjoyment

 

Unusual gray squirrel drey on Martha McCormac's balcony/Jim McCormac

Gray squirrel and its unusual drey a source of enjoyment

Columbus Dispatch

January 17, 2021

NATURE
Jim McCormac

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

— George Eliot

The eastern gray squirrel is one of our most common mammals, and their conspicuousness makes them obvious to about everyone.

Although backyard feeders of birds might wage war against wily seed-plundering squirrels, even they will have to concede that a certain level of admiration is warranted. The nonstop hijinks, arboreal acrobatics and problem-solving abilities put squirrels in their own league.

Come winter, plunging temperatures create a challenge for squirrels. True to form, they’ve come up with a solution.

Although gray squirrels use tree cavities as den sites, leafy nests known as dreys also are constructed. A drey is about the size of a basketball and is virtually always placed high in the limbs of trees. Dreys are conspicuous after the autumnal leaf drop.

Squirrels rely heavily on their dreys in winter to stave off freezing temperatures, especially when the mercury plunges at night. Sometimes two or more squirrels share the same drey, and their collective body heat might warm the nest interior to temperatures far beyond that of the outside. Research has shown that the innards of an occupied drey can be an astonishing 60 to 85 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature.

On Dec. 28 of last year, I was visiting my mother, Martha, at her third-floor apartment at Dublin Retirement Village. Squirrels are plentiful there, and Mom loved watching them race about the trees outside her windows.

To my astonishment, a squirrel was constructing a drey under a table on her small balcony. It was a most atypical nest site, and we watched construction progress with interest.

The squirrel began by snipping scores of small branches from adjacent trees, and dexterously wove them into a latticework between the table legs. Once the superstructure was sound, it began harvesting dead leaves. Within a day or so, it had thoroughly shingled the nest with leaves, creating a nearly watertight home.

Mom had been in declining health for some time and at this point depended upon a wheelchair for mobility. As the squirrel drey was three feet from the sliding-glass door, my brother Mike or I could wheel her into position for a ringside seat to its activities.

That squirrel was a source of entertainment for her, between its fevered nest-building and occasional wild chases with other squirrels that dared to intrude on its balcony.

As it turned out, this odd deck-dwelling squirrel was the last wild animal my nature-loving mother would get to watch. She drew her last breath at 3 a.m. on Jan. 4, three days after her 92nd birthday. My brother, his wife Patrice, daughter Megan, and I were at her side.

Shortly after mom’s passing, we retreated to the family room to decompress, and Megan said, “There’s that squirrel!” The bushy-tailed beast had emerged from the nest, and was sitting quietly on the corner of the balcony.

Gray squirrels are strictly diurnal, and that’s the only time that I’ve seen one out in the middle of the night. It was as if it was there to send us a message.

Maybe the squirrel was my mom’s spirit animal. It certainly brought her joy in her last days.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

An unusual squirrel dray

 

An Eastern Gray Squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis, has picked an odd place to site its dray (squirrel-speak for nest). The two stacked metal tables apparently met the squirrel's needs for an adequate supporting superstructure, and he built out of the box, so to speak. These animals normally place their drays high in trees, as many of this one's compadres have done in nearby trees.

My mother lives in Dublin Retirement Village, on the third floor. Her apartment features a small balcony, and this is where the squirrel has chosen to make its strange nest.

My brother, his wife, myself and other family members are frequent visitors to mom's place, and I happened to be there the first day the squirrel launched construction activities. By the end of the next day, he had largely completed construction. Squirrels begin with a sturdy latticework of small branches, which he harvested from nearby trees. Once these are in place to his satisfaction - there are hundreds of branches - he commences insulating the place with dead leaves. Many, many leaves are added, thoroughly chinking the gaps.

Sitting on the deck below the table is a small basket, and this may have been the perk that stimulated the squirrel to choose this site. His "bed" appears to be in the basket, which would provide yet another layer of easily insulated security. Ensconced within a well-built dray, the squirrel's body heat can keep the interior 20-30 degrees above the outside temperature. Sometimes two animals will share a dray, and that probably further increases the heat.

Gray Squirrels will sometimes make more than one dray, and this one may also have a more typical arboreal abode nearby. But, he seems to use the balcony nest as his primary residence.

Here is a brief video of the squirrel adding construction material. It's been educational to get a front row to the process; an activity that is normally difficult due to the lofty locations that they normally choose.

Gray Squirrel

A gray squirrel offers a nice perspective on its incredibly bushy tail. I shot this one in the backyard, and squirrels around here have it pretty good. Feeders offer unshelled peanuts, all manner of other seeds, plenty of mast-bearing trees, and lots of good cover. Gray squirrel longevity probably increases in such suburban oases.

The longer one of these animals survives, the wiser it becomes, and the more likely it is to avoid detrimental factors such as predators. Gray squirrels can reach ten years of age or more in the wild, although such elders are surely rare. The animal in the photo did not reveal his age, but he/she looked fat and happy to me.

Ubiquitous gray squirrel an acrobat - and a thief

A hungry gray squirrel dines in a box-elder/Jim McCormac

Columbus Dispatch

December 18, 2016

NATURE

Jim McCormac

One of the most widespread, familiar mammals in Ohio is the gray squirrel.

They occur in the wildest woodlands and the most urban parklands, the common denominator being trees.

Gray squirrels are a fixture of suburbia, and many bird lovers have waged war against the wily seed-stealers. Keeping gluttonous squirrels off backyard feeders involves both a battle of wits and superior engineering. Homeowners often lose.

It sometimes seems as if the animals have Velcro paw pads. A squirrel racing through the trees at full tilt makes for a spectacle. Running full-barrel up and down trunks, and racing across spindly limbs, the beasts make wild, death-defying, branch-to-branch leaps that would put any circus performer to shame.

The range of the gray squirrel delineates that of the great eastern deciduous forest, which once stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River, south to the Gulf of Mexico and north to southern Canada. Before settlement, this was probably the second most numerous squirrel in the East. The secretive, nocturnal southern flying squirrel was likely even more common.

A healthy gray squirrel is a handsome animal. Taping out at nearly a foot in length, a squirrel’s length doubles if the thick, brushlike tail is added. A healthy specimen might tip the scales at a pound and a half.

While the coat normally lives up to the squirrel's name — grayish with a white underbelly — color variants are not uncommon. Occasional albinos sometimes become conspicuous celebrities. In some areas, many or most squirrels are melanistic, or black. The Columbus area has small pockets of black squirrels, but it seems that in places like Kent, most gray squirrels are black.

Rural squirrels tend to be far warier than their citified brethren, and they serve vital ecological roles. They harvest and stash a wide variety of tree fruit, some of which will be forgotten and sprout new trees. While acorns, walnuts and other large woody nuts are favored, squirrel diets are quite varied.

The squirrels themselves often become meals. Large raptors such as great horned owls and red-tailed hawks are fond of squirrel meat. Foxes, bobcats and even big black rat snakes also take them.

Squirrel hunting is popular with some people, too, and many gray squirrels are harvested annually in Ohio. Partly because of reasonable bag limits, hunting doesn’t affect populations of this prolific breeder, but that wasn’t always the case. The earliest settlers often had crops ravaged by large numbers of raiding squirrels. One squirrel reduction hunt in 1822 killed nearly 20,000 animals.

Now that the leaves have fallen, basketball-sized leafy clusters high in trees become conspicuous. They are dreys, or squirrel nests. The animals use these botanical forts to raise young and as shelter during cold winter days and nights. Sometimes, multiple animals live in a drey, and their collective body heat can raise the internal temperature far beyond that outside.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Gray Squirrels also come in black

Back on March 8, I found myself at Tom Ruggles' place in Zanesville, attempting to observe and photograph Jeffrey, his spectacular yellow Northern Cardinal. You can see photos and read about this amazing bird HERE.

 

As is often the case while watching feeders, we were routinely distracted by marauding squirrels. On this day, however, we found ourselves rather charmed by their antics, and I was thoroughly smitten by certain of these bushy-tailed rodents.

 

We noticed this pair of Gray Squirrels, Sciurus carolinensis, way out in the back part of the lot. I'm assuming this is an amorous pair filled with the seasonal lust of spring. They remained 20 feet up this tree, nearly nose to nose, for quite some time. A lesser male, presumably, watches wistfully from the tree to the left.

After a bit, the two squirrels sidled up side by side, possibly communicating telepathically (for all I know). They also remained like this for some time. Assuming the male was charming enough, the end result will be little squirrellets later this spring, the first of two batches. Gray Squirrels often have another breeding period in mid-summer.

Elfin squirrellets become big squirrels eventually, and turn their sights to the local bird feeders if any are at hand. Their fondness for seed leads to one of the greatest man vs. wildlife interactions in the lower 48 states. Frustrated feeders of birds wage all out war on the clever beasts, devising numerous ploys to prevent the furry spidermen from accessing the feeders. Normally, the squirrels win. This one is practically thumbing his nose at us, and we were but a few feet away peering through the windows. Tom's squirrel dog, which is essentially a miniature Golden Retriever, was right by our side and quaking and simmering with rage at the insolent interloper. However, I insisted that the dog put a cork in it so I could make photographs of the squirrels, which probably did not endear me to said canine.

This is the animal that I really wanted to see and make photos of - the "black" squirrel. There is a healthy population of these sooty-colored squirrels in Zanesville, and they intrigue me. Perhaps it is because I hail from a land which has no black squirrels. There are supposed to be colonies of them in and around Columbus, Ohio, where I live, but I never see them here. Only the grays. So the spectacle of one of these black squirrels is a treat for me, a bit like seeing an alien descend from Spaceship Oak.

Even though the so-called black squirrels look totally different than their gray brethren, they are pretty much one and the same. The blacks are melanistic Gray Squirrels - they have one or two special genes that rewires their genetics to produce an abundance of melanins, or dark pigments. While most are coal-black such as the fellow in the photo, sometimes individuals with blond, gray, or even white highlights can be found.

The city of Kent, Ohio is especially famous for its abundance of black squirrels. Supposedly, the original stock of 10 squirrels was imported in 1961 from Canada and they've since spread like wildfire. But melanistic Gray Squirrels occur naturally and most populations have probably long been present and were not assisted by people. The black squirrels are most prevalent in Ontario, Canada and the northeastern United States. One theory has it that the black form of the Gray Squirrel dominated prior to European settlement,  when forests were still primeval and their dark coats helped the squirrels better blend with the shady old-growth woodlands. As the forests were opened up and hunting of squirrels increased, gray forms were favored as they blended better with the changing habitats.