Manchester & Trafford Pest Control

Some people love squirrels, while others hate them. Haters like to call them “tree rats.” Squirrel lovers may buy corn for them and set up feeding stations.

My views on them depended on the situation. If they were emptying my bird feeders, I saw them as pesky pilferers. If they were performing funny antics in a park, I found them cute. I have hunted and eaten them, though that was a number of years ago.

I never thought I would miss them and long for their company, until I did. I had moved to the Luray bottoms in Chester County and was there for several months when it dawned on me that I had seen no squirrels. Even when I searched the bare trees in the winter woods for squirrel nests, I could find no trace. I lived there for about eight years and though I saw the occasional fox squirrel, it was rare, even exciting.

It wasn’t lack of food or habitat, but I speculated that it might be that the rich bottomlands harbored a plentitude of snakes, and could imagine that baby squirrels would make a delicious meal. I have seen incredible climbing feats performed by snakes. Hawks and owls were abundant as well. I thought it might have something to do with swampland habitat that I could not quite pin down.

Now I live in hilly country, and I still find it uncommon to see a squirrel or a squirrel nest. I’ve asked wildlife experts and haven’t gotten a satisfactory answer about their low numbers. One proposed a theory that squirrel populations have become more urban. People may provide some protection from their primary predators.

Maybe so, but when I lived in rural settings south of Jackson and south of Lexington, squirrels were plentiful enough to be annoying. My dogs had become accustomed to me shouting, “Squirrel on the feeders!” and would leap to their feet in a mad rush for the dog door to give chase. If we were in the woods and I announced, “Squirrel!” every pair of canine eyes would scan the treetops. My current dog family has no grasp of the word “squirrel.”

In reading about the squirrel life cycle, I find they have fewer babies (called kittens) than I would have imagined. A litter will usually be two, three or four squirrels, and they have two litters per year — one in late winter, and the second in late summer. The mother squirrel prefers a tree cavity for her den but may make a warm bulky nest of twigs and leaves, lined with grass, in a crotch of large tree limbs. A warm attic will work, too, as many annoyed humans may attest, as will a birdhouse.

The kittens, born naked and blind, are protected by their mother for only 10 to 12 weeks. Most squirrel babies do not survive their first year.