Pine squirrels

I don't know how many of you have ever seen or even heard of a pine squirrel. They are tiny, like baby eastern brown squirrels, maybe an 7-8 inch body less tail. Well they chase off the grey squirrels that are easily twice as big as them and they rule my garden. They can get into any squirrel proof bird feeder that i've seen. I have one that uses the squirrels weight to close covers over the food hoppers. I even removed one of the two springs to make it more sensitive. Well he might leap from another tree and grab it gpoing by. They she hangs upside down holding on with three paws like a human climber while pushing up with the third paw to raise itself and the cage high enough to get to the food.

There are some Pikas here too, but they are rarely ever seen.

Jim

I had never heard of pine squirrels, but your description of them and their behavior sounded like the red squirrels in our area. When I looked up pine squirrel, the american red squirrel is one of them. I guess we have the same lil buggers (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus).

The western version of the pine/red squirrel (chickoree) is Tamiascurus Douglasii). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Squirrel They are brazen little buggers that will sit up in a tree and cuss you out for disturbing their lawful occasions. Cute though. The Mt. Graham red squirrel is an endangered subspecies of T. Douglasii here in Arizona that is confined to one particular sky-island mountain range.

Thanks for the info!

When it comes to our birdfeeders we just call them bushy tailed rats.

Squirrel launcher

lol, squirrel catapult