November 2024 Kids’ Corner
from the Gale River Cooperative Preschool
Amazing Backyard Squirrels
Winter is on the way! While humans start to think about digging out snow shovels, ice scrapers, and winter boots, New Hampshire’s animals are also busy prepping for the cold winter months. Soon we won’t see as many animals in our forests on a daily basis.
Some animals will escape the cold and migrate to warmer climates. More than 80% of New Hampshire’s bird species migrate south for the winter.
Some animals will hibernate through the entire winter. Jumping mice, bats, and woodchucks, are three local examples. Their heart rates and breathing slow dramatically and their body gets colder. They will rely only on the fat they have stored in their bodies for energy and won’t wake up at all for four to six months.
Other animals like bears and skunks hibernate differently. Their bodies also slow down and they still spend most of the winter asleep, but they can wake up if they are disturbed or if the weather warms up enough for them to leave their den to look for food.
One animal we will see all winter is the Eastern Gray Squirrel. While their forest neighbors are slowing down for the winter, Eastern Gray Squirrels are extra busy! Since they don’t hibernate and will need to eat all winter, they find and store lots of nuts, seeds, and acorns in holes they dig in the ground (You may have heard the term “squirrel it away” when people talk about hiding things in a safe place).
If you’ve ever stopped to watch a squirrel scurry around your backyard, school, or park, it might look like they are randomly hopping from place to place, but they’re not! Scientists have figured out that squirrels are actually incredibly thoughtful about where they hide their food stashes and have amazing memories. Check out these facts about how gray squirrels hide their food:
● One squirrel can bury thousands of nuts every year (that’s a lot of digging!)
● Squirrels create a mental map of their food collections (called caches) using landmarks around them like specific trees or rocks, much like a pirate treasure map in the movies. They can remember the location of 25 different caches for months!
● Squirrels use a memory trick called “chunking” that humans use too. They hide their food by type, or “chunks”, to make it easier to remember where each type is. For example, all acron caches close to a big rock, hickory nut caches are around a specific grove of pine trees, and beech nuts in someone’s front lawn.
● Squirrels try to trick competitors by digging decoy holes and pretending to bury nuts in case they are being watched. They also hide their nuts in inconvenient places for thieves, like muddy or hard to reach areas.
In addition to having to remember where they’ve hidden thousands of nuts, squirrels also need to be strategic about the time they spend working on their caches. Some squirrels prefer to have a smaller number of larger caches. This strategy makes their nuts easier to find, but they’ll lose more of their food supply if another squirrel discovers them. Other squirrels chose to bury fewer nuts in more places. In this system it’s not as big a deal if some nuts are stolen, however, more time digging holes means more time that they are vulnerable to predators like hawks and foxes, and also means more cache locations to remember.
Next time you’re outside and you see a squirrel, spend a few minutes watching them. Remember: that squirrel has to gather and then hide an entire winters-worth of food from all the other hungry squirrels in the forest, remember where they put it, and do it all without getting eaten themselves! They are having a busy day!
Your Turn
Ready to be a squirrel? With a partner, choose 25 small items (representing acorns) that you can hide. You can do this outside with real acorns, rocks, or sticks, or inside with any objects you’re ok with losing…like small pieces of colorful paper.
Your partner will give you two minutes to hide all of your items while they close their eyes or look away. Remember, squirrels are in a hurry!
Walk away for 10 minutes. Remember, squirrels leave their nuts in their caches for months!
Race your partner to find all of your “acorn” items. Remember, squirrels always need to worry about other squirrels stealing their food!
After round 1, discuss your strategy with your partner. Did you choose to hide a lot of your objects together, or did you spread them out? How did that work for you? What would you do differently next time? Repeat for round 2. Remember, there is no single “right answer”, even for the squirrels!
Stewardship Tidbit
Although squirrels have amazing memories, they do either lose or never go back for lots of their nuts. By digging a hole and filling it with seeds, squirrels are actually responsible for helping forests grow! Scientists believe that squirrels play a major role in helping oak trees grow and spread through forests because of all the acorns they plant.
Sources:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-squirrels-remember-where-they-buried-their-nuts/
https://ssec.si.edu/stemvisions-blog/why-do-squirrels-bury-nuts-and-other-mysteries
Image Sources (in order of appearance)
1)Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
2)[[File:Newburgh, Return of the wild geese - geograph.org.uk - 1046952.jpg|Newburgh, Return of the wild geese - geograph.org.uk - 1046952]]
3)[[File:Agitated groundhog in its burrow.jpg|A groundhog in its burrow, agitated.]]
4)[[File:Ursus americanus Labrador 03.jpg|Ursus americanus Labrador 03]]
5)[[File:Sciurus carolinensis - 2012-07-13.jpg|Sciurus carolinensis - 2012-07-13]]
