According to the New Hampshire Audubon Society, the American red squirrel is a bird (just kidding).
However, the form used by the Audubon Society for the recent Backyard Winter Bird Survey has a place for participants to indicate the number of red squirrels they saw on February 13-14.
A total of 1,776 red squirrels were reported during that period. Maybe red squirrels are trying to be birds because one of their many vocalizations is a chirp!
Red squirrels are one of the most widely distributed mammals in North America. These frisky, noisy, fearless little creatures are strictly forest dwellers and will scold intruders who venture into their closely guarded territories with their staccato chatter. Their tail flicking maneuvers are always amusing to watch.
Very unsociable, they are quarrelsome among themselves.
Opportunists in their eating habits, red squirrels will occasionally feast on bird eggs. But their main diet consists of pine and spruce seeds.
Remnants of pine and spruce cones scattered outside their living quarters are a sure sign of their presence. Active all year, they will store food in several caches for the winter.
Red squirrels are numerous, despite the fact that many do not live to see their first birthday.
They are often on the menu for owls, hawks, fishers, fox, coyotes, bobcats and especially the pine martens that will scamper through the treetops in swift pursuit of their prey.
Red squirrels have learned the secret of the sugar maple: They bite the trees and come back later to drink the sweet maple sap.
Larry Moore of the Windswept Maple Farm of Loudon told me that squirrels cause trouble by biting holes in his tubing. “This is the first time I have started tapping my trees so early, and we must always keep ahead of the squirrels,” he said.