The subject of squirrels came up the other day with our gang at coffee. Squirrels are one of the first game animals we can hunt, and the season is already underway.
In my high school days, squirrels were my number one target. Every chance I got, I was off into the nearby woods with my bolt action .22 rifle, and much to my mother’s dismay, I would often bring home a limit.
I haven’t hunted squirrels for some time now, but if you are planning to introduce a youngster to hunting — squirrel hunting would be a good way to do it.
It may surprise you, but if you count the chipmunk, Pennsylvania actually has five different species of squirrels roaming about the countryside.
Of course, everybody is familiar with the common gray squirrel, with its silver/gray body, some rusty brown on the sides, and some in the tail. They show up all over in the woods and at our bird feeders as well.
What’s interesting is the gray squirrel can also show up sporting another color, which is black or melanism. The black phase may be anything from dark gray to a jet black. These days, they occur mostly in the northcentral part of the state, but I have seen them around the Muncy, Milton area on several occasions.
On very rare occasions, a pure white albino squirrel may show up.
Speaking of albinism, I have only ever seen one albino squirrel in the wild, and that was a red squirrel, another species belonging to the squirrel family. Again, the red squirrel is fairly common, and almost all of us have seen them at one time or another. Red squirrels are about half the size of a gray squirrel and have rich rusty brown fur in the summer months. Red squirrels prefer pines and conifers for nesting.
This next squirrel is one that’s rarely ever seen around these parts, and it’s also the largest of our squirrels, and that’s the fox squirrel. My guess is that if you ask folks around here if they have ever seen a fox squirrel, almost everyone would say no. Many years ago, I was down along the Susquehanna River when I spotted a couple of fox squirrels, and those are the only ones I have ever seen in the wild. Fox squirrels are bigger than gray squirrels, and including a 10-inch tail, they are about 21 inches long. Fox squirrels have reddish-gray upper parts and buff to pale-brown undersides.
I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that the subject of squirrels came up at coffee one morning. What got me thinking about squirrels was when one of the guys said he cut down a dead tree and found a critter that he had never seen before.
It turned out that the little furry creatures coming out of a hole in the dead tree were actually flying squirrels. I’m guessing that some people out there didn’t even know we had flying squirrels in Pennsylvania. They are only about eight or so inches long, including their tail, and they have large eyes. The reason for the large eyes is to facilitate their night vision since they are mostly nocturnal. The flying squirrel is almost completely arboreal and rarely spotted on the ground. They don’t actually “fly,” but due to the loose flap of skin between the front and back leg, they can spread their legs and sail from tree to tree. Because of their unique behavior, they are rarely seen.
The guy who cut the dead tree down said those were the only flying squirrels he had ever seen. I have only ever spotted them on a couple of rare occasions.
In the meantime, try not to hit one of those gray squirrels in the middle of the roadway. It seems like they like our roads as much as the trees.
