They’re shaking in the trees, they’re skittering across the ground and they’re creeping away with a little bit of someone’s lunch outside the Atrium. These eastern gray squirrels, found across campus, are getting into all sorts of mischief.
“I remember one time I saw this squirrel running toward me across the Brickyard with a big red Solo cup in his mouth,” alumnus Josh McCollum said. “He couldn’t see me because his whole head was covered with the cup. I tried to step out of his way, but he ran straight into me. I screamed. I don’t know which one of us was more scared.”
When it comes to squirrels, students have nothing to fear. In fact, they have been sharing space since the University opened its doors in 1887.
“The eastern gray squirrel is the North Carolina state mammal and bears the scientific name Sciurus carolinensis because it was first recorded in the Carolinas,” John Brightwell, a graduate student in entomology, said. “They have been introduced across the world, but they are native here.”
Not only are they native to this area, they are also thriving. It is nearly impossible to walk across the Court of North Carolina or the Brickyard and not see a squirrel. Eastern gray squirrels do not migrate and can live up to 12 years in the wild, so a squirrel seen darting around a tree trunk today likely will be the same squirrel darting around that same trunk in a couple of years.
Getting to know these furry neighbors can be confounding, so Technician has taken the leg work out of deciphering their language.
Arnold Bakken, in his 1959 paper “Behavior of Gray Squirrels,” provides a list of squirrel communicative actions and their meanings.
“Understanding squirrels is important to gaining appreciation for things we take for granted,” Miles Engell, assistant professor of animal behavior, said. In her course, she encourages her students to read Bakken’s paper and observe squirrel behavior.
What may sound to the untrained ear as strange clucking noises from the squirrel may mean the squirrel is warning you or other squirrels, or it could be a mating call. Squirrels also have a variety of tail postures.
“The neat thing about squirrels is that they have four or five different tail flicks,” Engell said. “You can get a lot of information just from the way it flicks its tail.”
For example, if a squirrel flicks it tail in a jerk-like, front-to-back motion, it is signaling to other squirrels that it wants to mate or feed with them. However, if it quickly waves its tail in a front-to back motion instead of jerking it, the disturbed squirrel is telling a human or predator how it feels.
Watching these tail signals and calls can provide the observer with information about the surrounding environment. Squirrels are often more aware than people are of their surroundings because they are more concerned about falling prey to hawks and other predators. A squirrel noticing a hawk in the area and giving the corresponding tail flick can tip the observer off to other wildlife around it.
Fall is the best season for squirrel-watching. As Bakken said, “Individual activity attains a maximum during autumn.” They gather their acorns and bury them outside classrooms across campus and in backyards all around the state. They prepare their nests out of sticks and leaves that can be seen in the crooks and branches of tall trees. Their second wave of young begin to open their eyes high up in the nests and see the world below for the first time. “
Brush up on squirrel speak and listen in on their conversations.