Personal Observations
Introduction: All discussions located on this page are personal observations done in corresponding living areas. The authors; Gene Day (Hamilton, ON.), Kioumars Amini (Brantford, ON.), and Amanda Smith (Mississauga, ON.). They were meant to target information presented within this informational site, and look at the areas of interest done for this website.
Gene Day
Habits and Conservation
All my personal observations conducted for this natural history project were completed in Gage Park in Hamilton, Ontario. The park is bordered by Main Street East and Gage Avenue through to Lawrence Avenue in the central area of Hamilton. This park is a mainstay in the Hamilton-Wentworth area and is 28.80 Hectares (71 acres) in size, and is host to many events as well as home to a high number of Grey squirrels. Observations were conducted in three areas of the park to sample what squirrel behaviours could be observed. The first area of observation was in the northwest corner of the park, during the morning from 8:30 – 10:30 a.m. in very clear conditions. The second was in the northeast corner, during 5 – 6 p.m. in clear conditions and the third area was located in the southern central side of the park during 1 – 3 p.m. on a cloudy, temperate day (see picture in the maps area). All observation areas were approximately 100 metres in diameter and on average had 24 trees within these areas. Trees varied from maple, oak and other coniferous trees. The park is also a large draw for people so there were a high number of visitors at all times of observations. This meant that the squirrels were habituated to humans and that close observations would be tolerated without much interference. Most observations were done within 75 metres and closer at other times, as the squirrels would approach presumably for food.
Timing was done so that I could see the behaviours over one hour observation times and get a sense of how much time was devoted to foraging, eating and other behaviours. As noted above, a large portion of the grey squirrels time was spent foraging and eating. On average they spent thirty minutes foraging, twenty minutes eating, and the rest of the time involved in other behaviour like chasing, vocalizing and defending feeding areas. In four hours of observation time, I had tracked behaviour of six different squirrels in each area.
An interesting behaviour was noted in the feeding process. As the squirrel would find food during forage, the food would be taken about 2-3 metres away from the spot of finding for eating. This continued until that area was bare of food, at which point the squirrel would stay in the found spot and finish the last of the food. At this point, the squirrel would continue their forage. If the squirrel was watched and approached by other squirrels, the feeding squirrel would vocalize and raise its tail above its head. When the approaching squirrel got too close, a chase would ensue and the squirrels would continue foraging. This behaviour was noted until the squirrel appeared to have been satiated, at which time the squirrel would take foraged food and start to cache.
Caching would take place in various areas surrounding what I thought to be their territory (100m diameter), where they would dig a hole and bury their food. I do not know if there were other foodstuffs in these spots as I did not dig them up, nor did I notice that they visited the same spot. The same behaviours occurred in all three areas of observation with the exception of the south central area of observation as that time was midday and very little behaviour was noted.
At no time did I notice any bark stripping, as the Maple trees were not in sap at this time. Nor was any reproductive behaviours noted. Of interest during the observations was the squirrel’s ability to stay away from human visitors. When they would run up a tree, it appears that they would climb high enough to be out the reach of the visitor. Also they were able to move in the direction opposite of the visitor. This was an interesting ability, as I could not find a plausible explanation in literature for this ability. The squirrel could not see for the tree and presumably relied on sound to tell in what direction the visitor moved. This is the only explanation I could come up with, but unfortunately I could not hear any sounds of walking that a squirrel may hear, so I can only assume that the squirrel’s range of sound detection is of a much greater range than humans and judged from known characteristics of the local flying squirrel.
During my personal observations, I had noted a lot of different behaviour that the squirrel was involved in. I can see why hunters prize the squirrel in a hunt, as they are quick and very elusive. As I explained earlier, they had an ability to scurry up a tree just out of harms way and could always be on the opposite side of a tree no matter where the intruder went. Speaking from personal experience as a hunter, I thoroughly enjoy hunting the squirrel for just this reason. They are a difficult prey to sneak up on and they do provide a level of hunting that is next to deer hunting.
As observed in the Hamilton-Wentworth area, solely from a quick scan of the areas, it appeared that there were on average 24 squirrels in each area. Judging from this 100-metre diameter area (approximately 1 hectare in size), it can be estimated that there would be in excess of 700 squirrels in the 28.80 hectares of park space. This would be a conservative estimate as an average was used and some places were more heavily populated with squirrels.
The Hamilton-Wentworth area is home to many rural and suburb parks, not too mention the escarpment tree line that runs through Hamilton to Brantford and Burlington. So it seems that there is a potential for hundreds of thousands of grey squirrels to reside within the boundaries of this city.
Two others in the group did further observations, Kioumars Amini provides observations from Brantford, Ontario and Amanda Smith provides observations from Mississauga, Ontario.
Amanda Smith
Reproduction and Social Aspects
All
my personal observations conducted for this natural history project were
completed in Pheasant Run Forest in Mississauga, Ontario.
The forest is bordered by Folkway Drive and a large soccer field and
park. This forest is approximately
3200 feet in length and approximately 40 feet wide.
It is inhabited by many squirrels, mainly the grey squirrel.
Observations were conducted in one area of the forest at three different
times. The area was near the center
of the forest, by a 15X15 foot opening with no trees.
On the perimeter of the opening there were bushes with houses behind them
on one side and trees on the other. The
forest is a common place for people to walk or bike through to get to the park
at the one end of the forest. This
means that the squirrels are probably habituated to humans.
The first observation period was between four and five in the evening,
the second observation period was between two and three thirty in the afternoon
and the third observation period was between ten and eleven thirty in the
morning.
The
observations were conducted at different times of day in order to observe how
time affected behaviour. Foraging,
eating and social interactions were noted in order to infer how much time was
spent on each of these behaviours. In
each observation period a significant amount of time was spent foraging and
eating and only when the observed squirrel was approached by another squirrel
was there any social interaction. Squirrels
were usually approached while, what I presumed to be, in their home range
foraging for food or caching food. At
this time, the approached squirrel would either chase the squirrel away and
continue or end up in a chase that left me with choosing another squirrel to
observe. There was a difference
however during the evening observation. I
noted fewer squirrels around the area as well as very little behaviour
altogether, they appeared to be at a resting time.
There
were a few instances when the observed squirrel was approached by another
squirrel and instead of chasing him away, the observed squirrel ignored him.
This appeared to occur when the observed squirrel was smaller than the
intruder. One squirrel even left
his home range or food spot to the intruding squirrel. This was interesting to watch as it appeared that size
affected how the squirrels interacted with each other.
Another
interesting observation was female squirrels appeared to be taking some food up
the tree instead of caching it. Females
were observed to have bald patches on the front of their bodies and nipples.
I did see some smaller squirrels hanging around close to the trees and
therefore, I presume the mothers were taking food up to feed their babies, that
would be about three to four months at this point. They would not be able to forage completely on their own yet
so mothers not only had to cache food but feed their babies.
I
tried to observe the difference between the amount of food cached by female
squirrels and male squirrels in order to discern whether female squirrels cached
more. However, it was sometimes
difficult to tell which squirrels were female and which were male as some were
farther away than others. On the
whole, it appeared that there were more females around the trees and that they
spent more time caching than males. They
may be caching more food in order to have a larger supply for their babies when
they grow and need their own food cache. I
assume it would be difficult for babies to find their own food cache in the
beginning as they would be vulnerable to larger male squirrels.
I
didn’t observe any mating behaviours as the squirrels were between mating
seasons.
Two
others in the group did further observations, Kioumars Amini provides
observations from Brantford, Ontario and he focused on general characteristics
of grey squirrels and Gene Day provides observations from Hamilton, Ontario and
he focused on habits and conservation of grey squirrels.
Kioumars Amini
General Characteristics and Distribution
For the purpose of gathering information for this natural history project I visited Mohawk Park in Brantford, Ontario. This park, which is located in the southern part of the city, is home to a large number of Grey squirrels therefore an ideal location for conducting my observations. During my observations, which lasted a total of four hours on two different occasions, I collected data on the behaviours of four different squirrels. The first set of data, which is shown in the table below, was gathered during the afternoon hours from 1:30 to 3:30, under sunny and clear weather condition. The observation area was proximately 60 meters and consisted of a number of large oak trees. On this session, the behaviours of two different squirrels were recorded (each one-hour).
Squirrel
Eating
Foraging Other(Running, playing,..)
One
10 min 25
min 25 min
Two
18 min 20
min 22
min
The second observation took place in the same location, however in different
hours, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Once again two different squirrels were chosen and each was observed for approximately one hour.
Squirrel
Eating
Foraging Other(Running, playing,..)
One
15 min 23
min 22 min
Two
10 min 20
min 30 min
As it can be seen from the data, these squirrels spent half of their time on
finding and eating food and the rest was spend on other behaviours such as
running around, climbing the surrounding trees and on some occasions interacting
with each others. No caching behaviour was observed at any time during my visit.
Just like most other parks, squirrels in Mohawk Park share their environment with people and as I expected they were not too much concern about the present of park visitors, However, a safe distance were kept at all times.
Home I Map of Observation Locales I General Characteristics I Habits I Reproduction and Mating I Social Aspects
Conservation I Personal Observations I Pictures I Sounds of the Squirrel I References I Sites of Interest