February 17th, 2006
the psycho-squirrel
There are some who might debate that animals aren’t subject to such things as obsessions and psychoses. If that’s the case, then it’s difficult to come up with an explanation for the behaviour of a certain Red Squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) that has been controlling the ground and air space around the Sugar Maple tree where most of our bird feeders are located.
We believe the squirrel has been in this location through two winters and has made its presence conspicuous through its obsessive activities. It spends many hours watching, stalking and chasing birds, and more recently, has begun to chase an Eastern Cottontail rabbit (Sylvilagus floridanus) that occasionally visits the feeder area to clean up uneaten seed spilled by the birds. I caught one of the most violent squirrel attacks using the movie mode on my digital camera, and have uploaded it to my website. I have entitled the clip Psycho-Squirrel vs. Bronco Bunny. It is approximately 25 seconds long and about 1.8MB and requires a QuickTime player to view. The clip isn’t exactly terrific as the light was low and the speed of the squirrel so rapid that a digital camera wasn’t really the best rig for the job, but it happened to be within reaching distance when the event went down. Since then, I’ve shot a bit more footage of the squirrel vs. the rabbit using a DVcam, but nothing quite so bizarre as this brief clip. For those who don’t watch the clip, the above photo will give you some idea of what takes place during the sequence. The rabbit, which was minding its own business while eating seeds, is repeatedly charged and attacked by the squirrel. The rabbit, taking evasive action, jumps up and down like a bronco, but on a couple of passes, the squirrel does manage to connect and a chunk of its hair is even seen to float across the scene at one point during the attacks.
The rabbit now tends to try to avoid encounters with the squirrel by visiting the feeders before sunrise and in the evening, often as late as 11 p.m. Soon after this clip was shot, the rabbit appeared at the feeder with a squirrel-bite-sized chunk torn out of its ear. However, it is now less intimidated by the squirrel and sometimes stands up to it and won’t flee. This greatly frustrates the squirrel and, on some occasions, it will rush up to the rabbit and give it a hard shove with its front paws trying to get it to react. The rabbit’s strategy is to move under the low branches of one of the nearby cedar bushes where the squirrel can’t get a good run at him.
More photos of the squirrel and rabbit can be seen in one of my galleries on Pbase.
bev
Tags: Red Squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, Eastern Cottontail rabbit, Sylvilagus floridanus
February 24th, 2006 at 4:18 am
Great site – congratulations! The burning silo remains one of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard.
February 25th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Thanks, Altair! Glad you found your way over here!
bev
June 26th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
From my kitchen window, I have a view of our backyard neighbors feeder, and observed the following this morning. The rabbit has been coming to the ground beneath the feeder every day. But today, the squirrel was there too. The squirrel first got on a vertical raised garden border board and wildly whisked the tail angrily at the rabbit, who paid it no attention. At which point the squirrel charged the rabbit, who jumped high in the air and hopped away. Stay tuned!
November 30th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
[…] At least one Red Squirrel has been busy caching away apples and pine cones as provisions to carry it through the coming winter months. Some years, I find caches of a half dozen or so apples packed into the highest branches of the maple trees. This year, the strategy seems to have changed somewhat. I believe the squirrel may be trying to spread its resources around a little more as the apples are distributed singly, here and there throughout the gardens. Last year, the larger apple caches caught the attention of the Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata). They would work in pairs or trios as they tore into the apple cache while the frantic squirrel raced from branch to branch trying to chase the birds away. For the most part, it was successful, but its behaviour seemed to become increasingly psychotic as the weeks rolled by. In time, the squirrel was seen flinging itself at the birds so recklessly, that it fell from the treetops to tumble to the ground below. Eventually, the squirrel became so obsessive about protecting its tree full of apples, that it began attacking an Eastern Cottontail rabbit (Sylvilagus floridanus) that came round to clean up sunflower seeds below the bird feeders. You can read more about the Psycho Squirrel and its war with the rabbit in this post which includes some video footage of one of the many skirmishes that I witnessed last winter (you’ll have to suffer through the spinning video clip title which was attached to the file for another purpose). The follow-up to that story appears in this post where the squirrel and rabbit finally established an uneasy truce that seemed to hold through to springtime. […]
February 17th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
I was just looking around…and I saw this blog. The movie video is very well filmed…and well titled. It’s funny too- the bunny hopping around warily while the squirrel swings around wildly. Suppose the squirrel is rabid?
February 17th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Laiku – Thanks! The squirrel was quite healthy and it behaved much like this all through the winter. It is just very territorial and didn’t want the rabbit to get any of the bird seed from the feeders. Eventually, by the end of the winter, the two of them seemed to have a truce and would sit apart eating seeds. It was quite weird, but rather fun to watch.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
I suppose that it’s possible. Are black squirrels really mutations? I though they were just a rare species. I see them once in a while.
February 18th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Laiku – Black squirrels are just a color variant of the Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) Here’s a good page with some photos. We see mostly the black ones in the city up here, but gray ones in the countryside.
February 18th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I like the black ones. They’re the color of volcanic ash, black and glossy, not dull like matte black. I like the ebony jet- black color shimmering on their tails for some reason…
February 21st, 2007 at 3:59 am
I must’ve seen the black squirrels for at least 5 times in reality so far…
March 3rd, 2007 at 5:33 pm
[…] This weekend, there was a lot of squirrel and woodpecker activity around the farm. At one point, there were 3 Red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) on top of the bird feeder log. One of the squirrels is new to the front garden and can be recognized by the white tip of its tail (see above photo). Perhaps it is hoping to masquerade as a fox. One of the squirrels was probably the Psycho squirrel but it’s difficult to be sure. However, one of the squirrels did seem to behave oddly, clinging to the side of the feeder log and staring at the other 2 squirrels sitting up top and then occasionally rushing them to force them off. That certainly jives with its usual behaviour. […]
March 10th, 2007 at 11:58 am
That is rather…interesting. They seem very hyperactive and… stimulated.