Squirrels, those familiar and agile inhabitants of our parks and backyards, exhibit fascinating patterns in their daily and seasonal feeding behaviors. Understanding when these rodents forage provides insight into their survival strategies and adaptability to changing environments. Their feeding routines are linked to resource availability and life cycle demands throughout the year.
Daily Activity Patterns
Squirrels are diurnal animals. They display two main peaks of foraging activity each day, usually in the early morning shortly after sunrise and again in the late afternoon or early evening before dusk. During these periods, they are actively searching for food to consume or store. Activity levels often decrease during the warmest parts of the midday, when squirrels may retreat to their nests or shaded areas to rest and avoid intense heat. At night, squirrels remain quietly in their nests, conserving energy.
Seasonal Variations in Feeding
The feeding intensity and diet of squirrels shift considerably with the changing seasons. In spring, squirrels increase their foraging to replenish energy reserves. They seek out new plant growth, such as buds, young shoots, and flowers, and may also consume insects or use remaining food caches. Summer brings an abundance of diverse food sources, including various fruits, berries, and green vegetation, while collecting nuts and seeds for colder months.
During autumn, feeding activity becomes particularly intense, characterized by a focused effort on gathering and burying non-perishable foods like nuts and seeds. This extensive caching behavior is a crucial preparation for winter, allowing them to build up fat reserves. In winter, squirrels do not hibernate but reduce their activity levels significantly, relying heavily on their stored food reserves. They venture out from their nests only for brief periods, especially on warmer days, to retrieve their hidden caches.
External Influences on Feeding
Environmental factors can alter a squirrel’s typical feeding schedule. Severe weather, such as heavy rain, extreme cold, or deep snow, can reduce or delay their foraging activity, prompting them to remain sheltered. Predators, like hawks, influence when and where squirrels feed, making them more cautious and likely to forage in less exposed areas or during lower risk times. They may opt to carry food to a more secure, covered location before consuming it. Human activities, such as providing bird feeders or cultivating gardens with accessible produce, can also draw squirrels out at different or more consistent times, supplementing their natural foraging efforts.
Storing Food for Later
Caching, the burying or hiding of food, is a key aspect of squirrel feeding behavior. This practice is most pronounced in autumn when nuts and seeds are plentiful. Squirrels primarily engage in “scatter hoarding,” where they distribute numerous small caches across a wide area rather than concentrating all their food in one spot. This strategy helps mitigate the risk of losing their entire food supply to other animals or spoilage.
The intense effort of caching in the fall directly impacts their feeding schedule in subsequent colder months, as it reduces the need for constant, energy-intensive foraging when food is scarce. Squirrels locate these buried provisions using a combination of memory and their highly developed sense of smell, even managing to find them under layers of snow.