Red Squirrel Tunnels

I discovered a red squirrel tunneling under the fresh snow today. It had its opening right below our bird feeder. The chickadees are very helpful to the squirrels. Perhap they noticed that the feeder is a Squirrel Spinner, although most red squirrels are too light to go for a ride. In any case the chickadees seem to drop two or three sunflower seeds before they find one they deem suitable for eating or caching.

Here are two photos of the squirrel emerging from its tunnel under the snow.

This squirrel knew where the food was. Here it is sitting at the mouth of its tunnel smacking its lips as it anticipates enjoying the seeds the chickadees kindly provided.

 

I took a photo to give you an overview of the area. Actually this is several photos combined. The red squirrel is the same squirrel in two of the various entrance holes to his tunnel network. I first saw the squirrel scamper down the tree in the middle and dive into a tunnel out of sight below the red arrow. It then came out 10-15 seconds later under the bird feeder. 

This tunneling is perhaps a survival ploy to avoid the barred owl that sat on a short branch at the red arrow on the far right.  If you look closely at this photo you might be able to make out the owl. But the owl actually hasn’t been seen there since the last of January. You can see it up close if you CLICK HERE.

After I took a few photos I noticed the squirrel had two other tunnel exits, indicated by the arrows at the left on this photo. Here is the squirrel at the one on the far left.

The one to the right down below was also in use.

 

It was enjoyable spending a short time photographing and watching this charming red squirrel. 

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