Bushy-tailed

It felt a little strange to see this Eastern Grey Squirrel sitting on the log that I’ve photographed the Long-tailed Weasel standing in. Can’t remember if there were two or three Eastern Greys in the same area a few days ago, on 23 November 2014, one of them a black form. The Squirrel in this photo had such a beautiful, bushy tail.

“The Eastern Grey Squirrels come in two main colour varieties or morphs, black and grey, and there are a few with shades of reds or even yellows in their pelage. A new-born litter may contain individuals of all colours. In the east, due to predatory pressure, grey individuals have a better chance of avoiding detection in grey-barked trees while black ones survive best when in stands of black-barked Black Oak or Black Walnut trees. In Calgary, litters seem to be evenly divided between grey and black. In winter, black individuals appear to be more numerous, particularly during cold days; perhaps their black fur absorbs more radiant heat, allowing them to be more active than their grey brothers or sisters.”From talkaboutwildlife.ca.

“Like many members of the family Sciuridae, the eastern gray squirrel is a scatter-hoarder; it hoards food in numerous small caches for later recovery. Some caches are quite temporary, especially those made near the site of a sudden abundance of food which can be retrieved within hours or days for reburial in a more secure site. Others are more permanent and are not retrieved until months later. Each squirrel is estimated to make several thousand caches each season. The squirrels have very accurate spatial memory for the locations of these caches, and use distant and nearby landmarks to retrieve them. Smell is used once the squirrel is within a few inches of the cache.” From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_gray_squirrel