The Eastern Gray Squirrel

When I was about eight or nine years old my grandmother took my cousins and I to a local McDonald’s for Happy Meals. This particular location had an outdoor playground on the property which was surrounded by trees. As I was taking the wrapper off my hamburger, a tiny head popped up from behind the table, which initially startled me. As I took a closer look, though, I saw that it was nothing more than a tiny Eastern Gray Squirrel, so young it’s eyes were barely opened. He was very friendly, letting us pet him and feed him french fries (of course I wouldn’t recommend that now that I’m older, but it was cute at the time). We looked around to see if it’s mother was close by, but when we saw none we assumed it must have fallen from it’s nest and decided to take him home. It was the closest I had ever been to a wild animal, and I immediately fell in love. We named him Peanut and for the next six months raised him successfully on mixed seeds and nuts. As he got older he became more wild, and it was clear he belonged in nature. So after these several months, we took him to a local farm and set him free.

Many people, especially bird enthusiasts, see squirrels as pests. While I admit they can have some very bad behavior at times, I can’t help but love squirrels for their inquisitiveness, ingenuity, and sometimes silly antics. Perhaps another trait that makes them so endearing is the ease in which they are “tamed”. A few years after we raised “Peanut”, when I was in my early teen years, my younger sister and I tamed all of the squirrels in our neighborhood. It took a little persistence, but they became so friendly that two of them in particular would climb our legs to take a peanut and eat it sitting on an arm or shoulder. I remember those two fondly, “Chestnut” an Eastern Gray Squirrel, and “Walnut” a Fox Squirrel. Walnut looked like he had been in quite a few scuffles, and would growl every time he took a nut. His bark was bigger than his bite though, and he never went any further than these ”warnings” which leads me to think he was more scared than anything. Chestnut on the other hand was very trusting and gentle, and she even taught subsequent litters to take nuts from us. We could easily tell the two apart being Eastern Gray Squirrels have a bright white belly and very bushy tails, while Fox Squirrels are noticeably larger and have brown bellies. Perhaps one of these days I’ll dig up some old photos of my two little squirrel friends to share.

Those are memories I still treasure, and I’ve always been fond of these little critters even when they “steal” seeds from the bird feeders. I took the photo above last week while two Eastern Gray Squirrels were hard at work building and primping this nest right outside my window using all sorts of material. One had found a plastic bag that blew in our yard and was stuck in a bush, and he started to rip it apart and carry the pieces up to the nest. I ran and got my camera and took the following video:

Then my cover was blown and I was spotted:

Eastern Gray Squirrel Fact Sheet

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