A Book of the Seasons: The Red Squirrel

_{For the first time I perceive this spring that the year is a circle.} 

_{I would make a chart of our life,} 

_{just why this circle of creatures completes the world.}

_{Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852}

A red squirrel chiding you 

from his concealment 

in some pine-top 

is the sound most native 

to the locality.

September 24, 1857

No fruit grows in vain.

The red squirrel harvests the

fruit of the pitch pine.

April 2, 1859

March 12.   Observed the track of a squirrel in the snow under one of the apple trees on the southeast side of the Hill, and, looking up, saw a red squirrel with a nut or piece of frozen apple in his mouth, within six feet, sitting in a constrained position partly crosswise on a limb over my head, perfectly still, and looking not at me, but off into the air, evidently expecting to escape my attention by this trick. I stood and watched and chirruped to him about five minutes so near, and yet he did not at once turn his head to look at me or move a foot or wink. The only motion was that of his tail curled over his back in the wind. At length he did change his attitude a little and look at me a moment. Evidently this is a trick they often practice. If I had been farther off he might have scolded at me.  March 12, 1857 

March 18.  A red squirrel runs nimbly before me along the wall, his tail in the air at a right angle with his body; leaps into a walnut and winds up his clock. March 18, 1857

March 24. I saw two red squirrels in an apple tree, which were rather small, had simply the tops of their backs red and the sides and beneath gray! March 24, 1860

March 30. 6 a.m. — To Hill (across water). Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me by the hemlocks (running up a hemlock), all for my benefit; not that he is excited by fear, I think, but so full is he of animal spirits that he makes a great ado about the least event. At first he scratches on the bark very rapidly with his hind feet without moving the fore feet. He makes so many queer sounds, and so different from one another, that you would think they came from half a dozen creatures. I hear now two sounds from him of a very distinct character, — a low or base inward, worming, screwing, or brewing, kind of sound (very like that, by the way, which an anxious partridge mother makes) and at the same time a very sharp and shrill bark, and clear, on a very high key, totally distinct from the last, — while his tail is flashing incessantly. You might say that he successfully accomplished the difficult feat of singing and whistling at the same time.  March 30, 1859

April 1.  Walking through the maple there, I see a squirrel's nest twenty-three or twenty-four feet high in a large maple, and, climbing to it, —for it was so peculiar, having a basketwork of twigs about it, that I did not know but it was a hawk's nest, — I found that it was a very perfect (probably) red squirrel's nest, made entirely of the now very dark or blackish green moss such as grows on the button-bush and on the swampy ground, – a dense mass of it about one foot through, matted together, — with an inobvious hole on the east side and a tuft of loose moss blowing up above it, which seemed to answer for a door or porch covering. The cavity within was quite small, but very snug and warm, where one or two squirrels might lie warmly in the severest storm, the dense moss walls being about three inches thick or more. But what was most peculiar was that this nest, though placed over the centre of the tree, where it divided into four or five branches, was regularly and elaborately hedged about and supported by a basketwork of strong twigs stretched across from bough to bough, which twigs I perceived had been gnawed green from the maple itself, the stub ends remaining visible all around. Near by I saw another much smaller and less perfect nest of the same kind, which had fallen to the ground. This had been made in a birch, and the birch twigs had been gnawed off, but in this case I noticed a little fine broken grass within it, mixed with the moss.  April 1, 1858

April 2.   In the wood on top of Lee's Cliff, where the other day I noticed that the chimaphila leaves had been extensively eaten and nibbled off and left on the ground, I find under one small pitch pine tree a heap of the cones which have been stripped of their scales, evidently by the red squirrels, the last winter and fall, they having sat upon some dead limbs above. They were all stripped regularly from the base upward, excepting the five to seven uppermost and barren scales, making a pretty figure. I counted two hundred and thirty-nine cones under this tree alone, and most of them lay within two feet square upon a mass of the scales one to two inches deep and three or four feet in diameter. There were also many cones under the surrounding pines. Those I counted would have made some three quarts or more. These had all been cut off by the squirrels and conveyed to this tree and there stripped and eaten. They appeared to have devoured all the fruit of that pitch pine grove, and probably it was they that nibbled the wintergreen. No fruit grows in vain. The red squirrel harvests the fruit of the pitch pine. His body is about the color of the cone. I should like to get his recipe for taking out pitch, for he must often get his chaps defiled, methinks. These were all fresh cones, the fruit of last year, perhaps. There was a hole in the ground where they lodged by that tree. April 2, 1859

April 23.   A large hickory by the wall on the north side (or northeast side) of the hill apparently just blown down, the one I saw the screech owl go into two or three years ago. I think it may have fallen in this very high wind which arose within an hour; at any rate it has fallen since the grass began to spring, for the owl-hole contains a squirrel's nest made of half-green grass some what withered, which could only have been found quite recently, and also the limbs have been driven so deep into the ground that I cannot pull them out, which shows that the ground was thawed when it fell; also the squirrel's nest, which is perfectly sheltered, now the tree is fallen, was quite wet through with rain, that of the morning, as I think. This nest, which I suppose was that of a red squirrel, was at the bottom of a large hole some eighteen inches deep and twenty-five feet from the ground, where a large limb had been broken off formerly. An opening on the side had been stopped with twigs as big as a pipe-stem and larger, some of them the hickory twigs quite green and freshly gnawed off with their buds, forming a rude basketwork which kept up and in the grass and rotten wood, four or five handfuls of which, mixed with the rotten wood of the inside, composed the nest. This was the half old and withered and half green grass gathered a few days since about the base of the tree. April 23, 1859

May 13 .As I sat in my boat near the Bath Rock at Island, I saw a red squirrel steal slyly up a red maple, as if he were in search of a bird’s nest (though it is early for most), and I thought I would see what he was at. He crept far out on the slender branches and, reaching out his neck, nibbled off the fruit-stems, sometimes bending them within reach with his paw; and then, squatting on the twig, he voraciously devoured the half-grown keys, using his paws to direct them to his mouth, as a nut. Bunch after bunch he plucked and ate, letting many fall, and he made an abundant if not sumptuous feast, the whole tree hanging red with fruit around him. It seemed like a fairy fruit as I sat looking toward the sun and saw the red keys made all glowing and transparent by the sun between me and the body of the squirrel. It was certainly a cheering sight, a cunning red squirrel perched on a slender twig between you and the sun, feasting on the hand some red maple keys. He nibbled voraciously, as if they were a sweet and luscious fruit to him. What an abundance and variety of food is now ready for him! At length, when the wind suddenly began to blow hard and shake the twig on which he sat, he quickly ran down a dozen feet. May 13, 1858

May 29. Some eighteen feet high in a white pine in a swamp in the oak meadow lot, I climbed to a red squirrel’s nest. The young were two-thirds grown, yet feeble and not so red as they will be. One ran out and along a limb, and finally made off into another tree. This was a mass of rubbish covered with sticks, such as I commonly see (against the main stem), but not so large as a gray squirrel’s.  . . . I have thus found three squirrels’ nests this year, two gray and one red, in these masses of twigs and leaves and bark exposed in the tree-tops and not in a hollow tree, and methinks this is the rule and not the exception. May 29, 1860

September 1. Saw a red squirrel cutting off white pine cones.  He had strewn the ground with them, as yet untouched, under the tree. September 1, 1853

 September 24.   I saw a red squirrel run along the bank under the hemlocks with a nut in its mouth. He stopped near the foot of a hemlock, and, hastily pawing a hole with his fore feet, dropped the nut, covered it up, and retreated part way up the trunk of the tree, all in a few moments. I approached the shore to examine the deposit, and he, descending betrayed no little anxiety for his treasure and made two or three motions to recover the nut before he retreated. Digging there, I found two pignuts joined together, with their green shells on, buried about an inch and a half in the soil, under the red hemlock leaves. This, then, is the way forests are planted. This nut must have been brought twenty rods at least and was buried at just the right depth. If the squirrel is killed, or neglects its deposit, a hickory springs up.   P. M. — I walk to that very dense and handsome white pine grove east of Beck Stow’s Swamp . . . The ground was completely strewn with white pine cones, apparently thrown down by the squirrels, still generally green and closed, but many stripped of scales, about the base of almost every pine, sometimes all of them. Now and for a week a good time to collect them. You can hardly enter such a wood but you will hear a red squirrel chiding you from his concealment in some pine-top. It is the sound most native to the locality. September 24, 1857

September 25.  Stopping in my boat under the Hemlocks, I hear singular bird-like chirruping from two red squirrels. One sits high on a hemlock bough with a nut in its paws. A squirrel seems always to have a nut at hand ready to twirl in its paws. Suddenly he dodges behind the trunk of the tree, and I hear some birds in the maples across the river utter a peculiar note of alarm of the same character with the hen’s (I think they were robins), and see them seeking a covert. Looking round, I see a marsh hawk beating the bushes on that side.  September 25, 1857

September 28..I hear the barking of a red squirrel, who is alarmed at something, and a great scolding or ado among the jays. September 28, 1851

October  5 . I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel. I see him running by fits and starts along a chestnut bough toward me. His head looks disproportionately large for his body, like a bulldog's, perhaps because he has his chaps full of nuts. He chirrups and vibrates his tail, holds himself in, and scratches along a foot as if it were a mile. He finds noise and activity for both of us. It is evident that all this ado does not proceed from fear. There is at the bottom, no doubt, an excess of inquisitiveness and caution, but the greater part is make-believe and a love of the marvellous. He can hardly keep it up till I am gone, however, but takes out his nut and tastes it in the midst of his agitation. “See there, see there,” says he, “who's that? O dear, what shall I do?” and makes believe run off, but doesn’t get along an inch, – lets it all pass off by flashes through his tail, while he clings to the bark as if he were holding in a race-horse. He gets down the trunk at last on to a projecting knot, head downward, within a rod of you, and chirrups and chatters louder than ever. Tries to work himself into a fright. The hind part of his body is urging the forward part along, snapping the tail over it like a whip-lash, but the fore part, for the most part, clings fast to the bark with desperate energy.  Squirr, “to throw with a jerk,” seems to have quite as much to do with the name as the Greek skia oura, shadow and tail. October 5, 1857

December 1.  P. M. —Walking in Ebby Hubbard's woods, I hear a red squirrel barking at me amid the pine and oak tops, and now I see him coursing from tree to tree. How securely he travels there, fifty feet from the ground, leaping from the slender, bending twig of one tree across an interval of three or four feet and catching at the nearest twig of the next, which so bends under him that it is at first hard to get up it. His travelling a succession of leaps in the air at that height without wings! And yet he gets along about as rapidly as on the ground. December 1, 1857

December 10.  Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill. It has not been better picking this season there. They lie on the snow, or rather sunk an inch or two into it. And some trees hang quite full. See the squirrel-tracks leading straight from tree to tree. December 10, 1856

December 12. I see where a great many chestnut burs have been recently chewed up fine by the squirrels, to come at the nuts. The wall for half a dozen rods and the snow are covered with them. You can see where they have dug the burs out of the snow, and then sat on a rock or the wall and gnawed them in pieces. December 12, 1856

December 14.  By the snow I was made aware in this short walk of the recent presence there of squirrels, a fox, and countless mice, whose trail I had crossed, but none of which I saw, or probably should have seen before the snow fell.  December 14, 1855 

December 16. Steady, gentle, warm rain all the forenoon, and mist and mizzling in the afternoon  . . . See two red squirrels on the fence, one on each side of his house, particularly red along their backs and top of head and tail. They are remarkably tame. One sits twirling apparently a dried apple in his paws, with his tail curled close over his back as if to keep it warm, fitting its curve. How much smothered sunlight in their wholesome brown red this misty day! It is clear New England, Nov-anglia, like the red subsoil. December 16, 1855

December 18. I see a few squirrels’ tracks in the woods and, here and there in one or two places, where a mouse’s gallery approached the surface. December 18, 1854

December 20. Here are some crows already seeking their breakfast in the orchard, and I hear a red squirrel’s reproof. December 20, 1854

December 21. See a red squirrel out in two places. Do they not come out chiefly in the forenoon? December 21, 1859

December 22. Here is a stump on which a squirrel has sat and stripped the pine cones of a neighboring tree. Their cores and scales lie all around. He knew that they contained an almond before the naturalist did. He has long been a close observer of Nature; opens her caskets. December 22, 1850

January 5. To Kibbe Place Swamp. I see where probably a red squirrel had scratched along over the snow, and in one place a very perfect and delicate print of his feet. His five toes in separate sharp triangles distinctly raying off, or often only four visible. In one place I find a beaten track from a hole in the ground to a walnut a rod distant up which they have gone for nuts, which still hang on it. The whole print of the foot, etc., is about an inch and three quarters long, a part of the leg being impressed. Two of the tracks, when they are running, apparently, the two foremost, are wider apart; and perhaps with one pair they often make five marks, with the other four. Where there is a deep furrow in a chestnut tree between two swelling muscles, in two instances the squirrels, knowing it to be hollow, have gnawed a hole, enlarging the crack between two cheeks, and so made themselves a retreat. In one instance they have commenced to gnaw between the cheeks, though no cavity appears, but I have no doubt the tree is hollow.  January 5, 1853

January 13.  I see under some sizable white pines in E. Hubbard's wood, where red squirrels have run about much since this snow. They have run chiefly, perhaps, under the surface of the snow, so that it is very much under mined by their paths under these trees, and every now and then they have come to the surface, or the surface has fallen into their gallery. They seem to burrow under the snow about as readily as a meadow mouse. There are also paths raying out on every side from the base of the trees. And you see many holes through the snow into the ground where they now are, and other holes where they have probed for cones and nuts. The scales of the white pine cones are scattered about here and there. They seek a dry place to open them, — a fallen limb that rises above the snow, or often a lower dead stub projecting from the trunk of the tree. January 13, 1860

January 17.  Surveying for William O. Benjamin in east part of Lincoln. Saw a red squirrel on the wall, it being thawing weather.  January 17, 1854

January 17. I look again at that place of squirrels (of the 13th). As I approach, I have a glimpse of one or two red squirrels gliding off silently along the branches of the pines, etc. They are gone so quickly and noiselessly, perhaps keeping the trunk of the tree between you and them, that [you] would not commonly suspect their presence if you were not looking for them. But one that was on the snow ascended a pine and sat on a bough with its back to the trunk as if there was nothing to pay. Yet when I moved again he scud up the tree, and glided across on some very slender twigs into a neigh boring tree, and so I lost him. Here is, apparently, a settlement of these red squirrels. There are many holes through the snow into the ground, and many more where they have probed and dug up a white pine cone, now pretty black and, for aught I can see, with abortive or empty seeds; yet they patiently strip them on the spot, or at the base of the trees, or at the entrance of their holes, and evidently find some good seed. The snow, however, is strewn with the empty and rejected seeds. They seem to select for their own abode a hillside where there are half a dozen rather large and thick white pines near enough together for their aerial travelling, and then they burrow numerous holes and depend on finding (apparently) the pine cones which they cast down in the summer, before they have opened. In the fall they construct a nest of grass and bark-fibres, moss, etc., in one of the trees for winter use, and so apparently have two resources. January 17, 1860

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

A Book of the Seasons, , by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024