Dashing into winter with dinner in its jaws

A red squirrel dashed across the road in front of our car the other day. In his mouth, he carried a pine cone twice his size. Frightened by our looming vehicle, he dropped the cone a few feet short of the edge of the road, dashing alone to the safety of a nearby tree while our car passed. The delighted shrieks of children in the back seat reported that, when our car was clear, the tiny critter crept back into the road, secured his foodstuffs in his hard-working chompers and leapt with the cone off into the grass along the roadside.

In northern New England and eastern Canada, squirrels are a frequent sight in the rural and urban landscape. They are rodents and belong to the same family as woodchucks – and though we who have suffered damage at the teeth of many of their family relations might feel that they pose a potential threat to our bulbs or plants – this gardener has never witnessed damage by or heard of injury caused by the rascally red (or gray) rodents.

Squirrels are found on every continent except Australia. In our neck of the woods, their relations may be unsavory, but the squirrel poses little threat to the home landscape other than to glean fodder from the yard. Working among the fallen leaves this season, you’ll see them harvesting nuts and seeds. They have a habit of storing these treasures for winter sustenance. One neighboring gray squirrel was spotted in action recently. He gleaned acorns that had fallen from a large oak tree onto our gravel road and then ran with his cheeks jammed to full capacity up the trunk of a mature maple about 50 yards away.

He scurried up the gray bark of the maple and darted into a cozy-looking hole that formed in the scar of a long-fallen branch. From there he peeked out at us. Cheeks were quickly emptied of their loot and he peered at us with a ferocious, defensive stare. He guarded his winter stash.

While species of ground-dwelling squirrels hibernate, tree-dwelling squirrels do not. This means they must expend an enormous effort gathering food energy for the winter months. While they occasionally eat buds and insects, that food source isn’t as dependable or storable in a harsh winter climate as nuts. In our cold climate, the critter’s main energy comes from nuts or seeds of the oak, maple, pine and beech.

Because of their tendency to store nuts, squirrels are a vehicle for dispersal of seed for the trees upon which they feed. Imagine for a moment the gray squirrel harvesting his acorns, stuffing his cheeks. He dashes from yonder oak toward his maple grove. On the way, an acorn falls from his grasp and rolls under the thick layer of fallen leaves. This environment might be perfect for producing new oaks: sheltered under the natural mulch of the leaf layer, the acorn can await the warm temperatures of spring that initiate germination.

These organisms have a symbiotic relationship – a relationship that is mutually beneficial. The oak is assisting the squirrel by producing valuable food. Likewise, the squirrel provides the tree with an invaluable service: without a legged creature, the oak would drop its acorn seed to immediately below its canopy. With the squirrel, the oak’s reproductive possibilities are changed. The animal carries seed to areas outside the range of the canopy, potentially expanding the geographic range within which the tree species may thrive.

What can we learn from squirrels? Like so much in nature, simply observing their ways can offer opportunity for reflection on our own lives.

In autumn there’s a certain feeling that we’re not too far removed from nature. Winter thins the interface between people and their environment. The warm temperatures of summer, the bright sunlight, the plentiful food in the garden – those consolations just are not there. And although our modern era affords most of us creature comforts that more than adequately buffer us from the winter environment, for some of us there is that squirrel-like primal notion nagging at our heads: do we have what it takes to survive the winter? Is enough firewood? Is there enough food stored in the freezer and pantry? Do we have adequate will to endure the cold winter and short days?

Among the worry there is the comfort of our home, the warm fire, the easily adjusted furnace thermostat, the steady supply of groceries from the pantry, freezer and store. We huddle together out of choice, not out of need for essential warmth. Yet there’s that feeling of needing to “squirrel it away” and await, with whatever comfort one can muster, the relief of spring.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, 512 North Ridge Road, Montville 04941 or e-mail dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.