The snow is gone and leaves have not yet filled in the forest canopy, so it’s a great time to look at red squirrel middens. Conifer seeds make up a large percentage of the red squirrel diet, and the animals spend lots of time eating or collecting conifer cones. To get at the seeds a squirrel holds a cone in both front feet and, starting at the bottom, chews off each scale and eats the exposed seeds, spinning the cone as it works its way toward the tip. This is done with typical red squirrel energy, and the scales seem to fly out at blistering speed. The scales and cone cores accumulate around or below the feeding station, and the resulting piles of debris, called middens, can be quite sizable. The mounds in the photo contain mostly the cores and scales of Norway spruce cones. Middens this large must have accumulated over a number of years, probably during the residence of several different animals.
The hole just below the trunk of the closer tree is an entrance to an underground space where cones were stored. These food caches are often located in the spaces around the roots under the middens, but may also be in rock cavities, log piles, or even human structures. They are generally underground where the high humidity prevents the cones from opening.
Red squirrels depend on stored conifer cones for survival over the winter. In late summer and early fall conifer stands resound with the sound of objects hitting the ground as the animals nip the cones in the tree tops. Once a good supply has fallen, the squirrels descend and carry the cones to their underground storage spaces. It’s this habit of creating concentrated supplies in a limited number of locations, called larder hoarding, that allows the animals to inhabit boreal forests with long, snowy winters. Imagine the effort that would be involved if, like gray squirrels, red squirrels had to dig down through a deep snowpack to retrieve each individual food item. With its food stored in larders a red squirrel merely needs to maintain tunnels leading from the surface to the ground-level entrances.
Middens are usually located at the bases of the trees which provided the cones, indicating that the squirrels bring cones up from storage to perches higher in the tree to feed. In the photo above you can see a Norway spruce with several branches (dead but still strong enough to support a squirrel) which could have served as feeding perches. These branches, or ones nearby, are often marked by the squirrels. One such branch is shown in the photo below. The shot was taken from directly above the branch. You can see some partly eaten spruce cones on the ground below in the upper part of the photo, and the dark tree trunk in the lower right-hand area. The branch itself is liberally marked with the fresh gouges of red squirrel incisors, and there are a few older gouges from previous years. The scent compounds left in the wood would establish the resident squirrel’s ownership of that particular real estate.
Middens tell us how much red squirrels depend on conifers for their winter food supply–and it’s not just Norway spruce. Where pines, hemlocks, firs or other spruce species are more common their cones provide the bulk of the winter diet, and similar middens can be found.
In the mixed forests of central New York, middens tell us about the non-coniferous foods that red squirrels also make use of. In the photo above butternut shells with typical red squirrel entry holes are mixed with the spruce scales and cores. I’ve also found the opened shells of walnuts, acorns, and hickory nuts in red squirrel middens. And occasionally a bone fragment, with telltale incisor gouges, sits atop a midden. Red squirrels, like other small mammals, need to boost their calcium intake by chewing on bones, and a familiar feeding perch makes a fine location for a dose of minerals.
beautifully detailed prints. In the photo on the right (direction of travel to the right), the right rear track is at the bottom of the frame, and the right front is just above it. The other two prints are at the top, the left rear just behind the left front. The toes and middle pads show up nicely in both front and rear tracks. The heels of the rear prints made impressions, and the paired heel pads of the right front track can also be seen.
arranged almost identically except that the left front track is just below the left rear. There’s a similar amount of detail, with toes and middle pads clearly visible in both front and rear feet and the paired heel pads showing in both front feet. I had hoped that if I found really detailed tracks I would see features that would separate chipmunks and southern flying squirrels, but to my eyes there are no appreciable differences between the tracks in the two photos. The dimensions are similar as well: both sets of prints have a trail width (the distance from the right edge of the right rear print to the left edge of the left rear print) of 2 inches, and the length of the front track is 9/16 inch for the flying squirrel and 5/8 inch for the chipmunk, not significantly different. So how did I know that the tracks in the first photo were made by a southern flying squirrel, while those in the second belonged to a chipmunk?
Southern flying squirrels have flaps of skin (patagia) that connect the front and rear legs all the way out to the ankles, so they move differently from chipmunks (and also from tree squirrels, for that matter). The front tracks of a bounding southern flying squirrel are set almost as wide as the rear, and they are usually in front of, or occasionally between, the rear tracks. Because of the skin flaps, flying squirrels are not as fleet-footed on the ground as other small rodents, so their leaps are shorter. Compare the southern flying squirrel bounding trail in the photo above (traveling from bottom to top) with the next photo of a trail made by a chipmunk (traveling from top to bottom). 
In its normal traveling bound the chipmunk consistently places its rear feet ahead of its front, and its leaps can be much longer than those of the flying squirrel. Of course chipmunks do sometimes make short leaps, and they do sometimes place their front feet between (as in the second photo of the blog) or ahead of the rear. That kind of pattern in a chipmunk trail is an indication of a break in the rhythm, while it falls withing the normal bounding pattern for a southern flying squirrel. (By the way, neither of the bounding photos came from the day I took the close-up shots, but they illustrate the trail patterns I saw that day.)
For an animal the size of a flying squirrel even a few inches of soft snow can be enough to change its gait pattern from its normal bound to a double-register bound like the one in the photo at the right (direction of travel from lower right to upper left). The relative positions of front and hind prints no longer apply, but trail width can still be measured, and this trail had a trail width of 2 1/8 inches, squarely in the range for the southern flying squirrel. A chipmunk trail would have had a similar trail width, but the trail pictured above was made during a long stretch of cold weather. Chipmunks wait out winter’s coldest periods in a state of torpor in their underground refuges, while flying squirrels come out regularly even in frigid temperatures.
squirrels bite off oak twigs to get at the ripening acorns, and the “nip twigs” (minus acorns) can be found scattered under oak trees. The acorn remnants–shell fragments and partly eaten acorn meats–may also be found on the ground or on nearby logs or stumps where a squirrel has a good view of its surroundings while feeding.
This puzzled me at first, so I got out my magnifier and took a closer look. I noticed that there were tiny tunnels in some of the brown spots, and one even had a minute, worm-like insect larvae. I also saw indistinct gouges in a few of the brown spots that looked a lot like tooth marks. Mystery solved! The squirrels were feeding on acorn weevils, often found inside acorns and much richer in calories than the acorns themselves.
and fungi have been popping up everywhere. I’ve been surprised to see how fond squirrels are of mushrooms. I’ve repeatedly come across mushrooms which had been plucked from where they had grown, carried to some other spot, and partly or almost completely eaten. Bite marks sometimes showed along the edges, and there were always discarded pieces scattered around–squirrels seem to be sloppy eaters. 
Slugs and snails also seem to love mushrooms, but they simply make broad, shallow gouges in the caps and the mushrooms remain standing where they grew.
and move into more sheltered lodgings, often in hollow trees. Instead of using leaves, they line their nests with fibrous material. The inner bark of this dead branch was stripped off by a squirrel and used to provide warm insulation for its nest. The smoothly denuded wood surfaces and hanging remnants are typical of squirrel work. 
In addition, there are usually a few gouges made by the animal’s incisors somewhere in the debarked area. Dead branches are the most common source of good nest lining material, but the bark of living honeysuckle and other shrubs is a favorite material where they are available.
I just spent a wonderful week in the western Adirondacks, and I was able to indulge in one of my favorite activities: exploring the Independence River on foot–in other words, wading. Besides being breathtakingly beautiful, the Independence is small enough to be safely waded when water levels are low, and there are plenty of sandbars and silty edges where tracks can be found. These bear tracks were the find of the day. 
The bear was traveling from left to right, and my dog (she likes to explore rivers with me) left tracks below the bear’s, going in the opposite direction. The first bear print at the upper left is the right front, and just to its right is the right rear. A little farther to the right is the left front print and to its left the left rear. The pattern of rear print ahead of front from the same side tells me that the bear was moving at an overstep walk–a gait often used for relaxed investigation or leisurely travel.
there are usually plenty of other indicators that bears are in the neighborhood. Bears use a variety of marking techniques to communicate with other bears, and these marks are often prominent and long-lasting. A bear raked this white pine tree with its claws, leaving fresh claw marks which oozed with copious sap flows.
On a different day during my recent visit to the ‘Daks I walked along a forest road where posts had been set to mark the locations of culverts. It was clear that bears were habitually using that road–many of the posts, like this one, were ravaged by bear bites. The brighter wood exposed by the bites stands out to our eyes, but for the bear the scent of the saliva-soaked wood is probably more important.
They often rub against trees or wooden structures leaving a personal scent signature from the oils and sebaceous chemicals in their fur. Another post along that same forest road was decorated with hairs left by a bear that had done just that.
This time of year in the Adirondacks black cherries are a favorite item, as demonstrated by this example. Elsewhere the skins and seeds of apples, grapes, viburnums and berries; squash and pumpkin seeds; corn kernels; or the shells of hickory nuts, beechnuts and acorns may show up in late summer scat. This is the season of ursine hyperphagia, the insatiable hunger that drives bears to eat almost 24 hours a day. The thick layers of fat they put on will allow them to survive their long winter hibernation.
he one that first caught my eye was the right rear print that lies off by itself in the lower right part of the photo. The much larger rear print of a gray squirrel lies above it, and at least two other chipmunk tracks are visible among the unrelated disturbances in the upper part of the photo. The chipmunk’s right front print sits in the left part of the frame midway between top and bottom, and its left rear print can be seen above the squirrel track. The left front print isn’t obvious but a few small depressions suggest that it lies above the right front in the upper left quadrant of the photo. The chipmunk was moving toward the right.
so I’ve focused in on them in the photo to the left. The toes and claw marks are visible, four of each in the front track (at the upper left) and five in the rear track (at the lower right). Behind the toes you can see the grouped depressions that make up the middle pads of both the front and rear tracks. For such a small creature those tracks are exquisite.
central three toes lie close together and point forward, while the inner and outer ones sit farther back and are angled to the sides. The four toes of the front prints are spread more or less evenly. The middle pads of both front and rear feet are made up of four depressions, arranged in a crescent in the rear and a more triangular shape in the front. In the front print the heel pads, located just behind the middle pads, show as small paired depressions.
It took perfect mud to register the details in these white-footed mouse tracks (heading toward the top of the photo), but the family resemblance comes through clearly. The numbers and arrangements of the toes are the same, and the middle pads of both front and rear prints are similar to those of the chipmunk and the squirrel. You can even see the heel pads, albeit slightly smeared, in the front tracks!
you come to the muddy patch shown in the photo. It’s busy with the tracks of mountain bikes, dogs, and people’s boots, and you’re tempted to simply step around the mess and continue on. But instead you push yourself to look more closely, and you immediately notice a couple of intriguing prints (located just to the right of center in the photo). As you examine them you see that they are the rear (above) and front (below) tracks of a canine, and they surely don’t look like domestic dog. The lower print, 
shown in the next photo (it’s located down and to the right of center in the first photo), 
exhibits plenty of revealing detail. The toes are held tightly together, with the outer and inner ones tucked closely behind the two leading toes. There is a nice canine X made by the ridges between the middle pad, the inner and outer toes, and the two leading toes pressed together. The mud is textured by compressed hair, and a chevron-shaped indentation shows in the middle pad. Claw marks are faint except for that of the left leading toe, which is slender and points straight ahead. This is unmistakably the front print of a red fox, and the smaller print ahead and to its left is a rear. Other than those two tracks the fox left little evidence of its passing, but I was delighted to know that it had traveled the same trail I was following.
and the hair sometimes shows beautifully in the fine silt and mud of summer. Here’s a photo from a muddy spot along an ATV trail in which the hair is really obvious. The front track is at the upper right and the rear is at the lower left. (Between them is the track of a raccoon that was turning to the left.) In addition to the hairiness, you can see the difference in size between front and rear tracks as well as the bar in the middle pad of the front print.
In the photo you can see a front print in the upper right corner (there’s a maple seed partly covering two toes) and behind that print a rear track, both heading toward the right. In the lower left quadrant are a front and rear that are going in the opposite direction. What I love about these tracks are the peculiar indentations where the surface layer of mud was actually picked up by protruding parts. Take a look at the front track in the upper right corner. The chevron in the middle pad picked up the surface layer of mud and left a slightly curved indentation. The small horny pads that sit at the tips of the toes and protrude from the hair also picked up some mud and left oblong indentations. And the same thing happened in the two leading toes of the rear print (over to the left of the front print) to produce oval indentations. Around some of these holes there are larger shadowy impressions that show where the rest of the toe touched the mud. The hairless protruding parts of red fox feet don’t always show in tracks, and you may wonder, as I have, whether they serve any purpose.
So to finish that sequence here’s a print from mud that was almost unyielding and nearly dry. Again it’s a red fox print, but a very different looking one. (The card at the upper left is a one inch square for size reference.) The direction of travel is toward the right, and the deepest marks were made by the claws punching into the mud. The tips of the horny toe pads (the same structures that picked up bits of mud in the previous photo) show behind each claw mark, and in the area of the middle pad we see the chevron. If the fox had been moving slowly we would have strained to detect any evidence of its passing, but this fox was going fast enough for the claws, the small protruding toe pads, and the hairless chevron of the middle pad to push into the hard mud. And here’s a possible answer to our question from the preceding paragraph. These structures must have helped to give the fox traction. Perhaps without them the hairy feet would slip and the fox’s footing would be compromised.