The continued "tail" of the squirrel...

Last week I posted a camera trap image (seen at left) of a stray cat with a strange looking red squirrel in it’s mouth. Red squirrels are mostly…well, red. Of course there are variations, and they’re not ALL truly red. But this was really something, the body appeared (in this picture) to be either naked of fur, or covered in a very light coat of white fur. Strange color variations can occur in all mammals like leucism (lack of pigment in localized areas), melanism (excess of pigment), and albinism (complete lack of pigment: all white/blonde fur, pink skin and eyes). If it was anything, I guessed this squirrel was leucistic through it’s trunk/abdomen area. Other theories were that this was a baby squirrel, it was albino, it had an ectoparasite like mange, it was shaved, and/or fur loss. Having only this grainy, unfocused camera trap picture to go by, we could only guess.

Then, yesterday morning I opened the back door to let the dog out, and there was ANOTHER “white” red squirrel in my backyard, this time alive, and happily feeding on bird seed. I quickly got my camera and started taking pictures.

A side by side of the front and the back of Squirrel #2.

As you can see, he or she appears very healthy and is gorging on black oil sunflower seeds. You can also probably see that this squirrel IS covered in fur, but just a fine downy layer. It was suggested, and I agree, that this squirrel appears to just be missing the guard hairs, but the downy undercoat is still there. If you have a dog or a cat, part their fur and you’ll likely see a color difference in the coat. Longer hairs also are longer and coarser than the fine down.

So, are these squirrels just shedding or molting? It’s the strangest thing.

I stuck my camera trap back out to try and get some footage of them. Here are a few of the images.

 

Then, this morning I sit down at my kitchen table, at which I have a great view of the backyard, and there are TWO of these strange-looking squirrels now! So a total of the strangest looking red squirrels I’ve ever seen, end up in my back yard!

Two “white” red squirrels in my yard, Schoharie, NY

The bar you see in the above picture is part of an old porch swing frame that I use to hang my feeders from.
I’ll leave you with this video of Squirrel #2 yesterday afternoon. Feel free to comment with ideas. I’ve sent pics in to the DEC and am awaiting a response!

 

Squirrels!

Northern and Southern flying squirrel

ranges in the the United States.

Range map credit:

www.flyingsquirrels.com

I couldn’t come up with a more creative title for all of the cool pictures I’m about to share. Over the course of the past couple weeks, I was able to capture 3, possibly 4, different species of squirrels on my Cuddeback Attack flash camera trap!

I believe there are a total of 6 species of arboreal (tree-dwelling) squirrels in New York: gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), fox squirrel (Sciurus niger), red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), Northern flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus), Southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans), and the Eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus).

I can say say with certainty that I have gotten the gray and red squirrel. The 3rd and possibly 4th species are of flying squirrel. In New York State, we have both the Northern and Southern. The maps at left show how the two species overlap into NY. Both species extend into Canada, but the Northern moreso.

Also, I should add that there aren’t any Eastern chipmunks showing up anymore this year because I believe they’re all tucked into their dens hibernating!

I modified the flash by taping

~2/3 over the flash with black electrical tape.

I recently wrote about and shared the preliminary results of messing with a nontraditional mounting of the camera, check that out here: A different perspective…. This was the trial period of playing with the flash (it’s way too bright for close range critters), and how to mount the camera (on it’s back looking up the trunk of the tree).

I got some interesting color variations of the two more well known squirrels…a black squirrel (actually a gray!) and an orange (actually a red!) squirrel. Sometimes people have a hard time understanding how this works. A squirrel that is black, should be called a black squirrel, right? Well you can call it that, but it’s genetics tell us it is the same species as the gray…just a different variation of color. I’m a blonde, you might be a brunette, a red-head, or gray. Those are all just variations of the color. Unfortunately, when people were first discovering plants and animals, they named them as they saw them. Gray squirrel, red fox, bluebird, white-tailed deer. All of these animals can and will show up from time to time a different color.

Anyway, here they are!

A black, gray squirrel.

A very orange, red squirrel.

Red squirrel again...

And most likely the same black squirrel again...

 

 

These top 4 pictures are taken from atop a cinder block at the base of the tree. That large branch at the right of the picture is where the camera was mounted for the rest of the pictures. That branch is ~8-9 feet off the ground.

Flying squirrel! Species unknown.

Flying squirrel again, species still unknown.

Flying squirrels are next to impossible to identify to the species level "in the field", as they say. Perhaps those who study flyers know a way to do so. The only way I know, besides examining their DNA, requires you to be handling the squirrel. You blow gently into their belly fur (both species have a buff colored underside), but when the hairs are parted, the Northern reveals a dark gray base to the fur. But, that's a difficult way to ID a wild animal.

A true gray squirrel.

 

The only complaint I have about these images is that because the lens is pointing directly skyward, as the squirrels ascend and descend the trunk, bits of bark come loose and drop onto the camera. The lens is recessed into the casing of the camera a little bit, so these pieces and condensation can collect here. You can see in the last picture a dark spot in the upper left hand corner. A small price to pay for some neat photos! Now that I have the flash issue figured out, I'll be messing with this angle MUCH more and trying to lure the flying squirrels in for a closer look.

 

Red Fox Color Variation

Back to Alaska for this post, folks.

Before going to Denali National Park & Preserve, I was told to be on the watch for red fox in the park. In Alaska, and typically the farther north in North America you go, the red foxes come in a variety of color variations.

While I was up there, I asked several people, specifically 2 furriers at a festival, if there were gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) in Alaska. The answers were always "Oh yeah, we've got tons of colors. Gray, black, silver, cross, red...". No one seemed to know that I was talking about a different species. And so, I waited and hoped to see a funky looking fox.

Denali National Park & Preserve of course delivered, and brought us a beautiful, although a little scruffy, red fox.

7/23/12

7/23/2012

7/23/12

7/23/12

 

How gorgeous is this animal? I emailed several professionals around Alaska. Fur-bearer biologists, trapping association president's, state and federal biologists, and the answers I got back were unconclusive on this red foxes color. They all seemed to agree that it was molting. Late July in DNPP is similar to late August in New York, weather-wise at least. So this guy or gal was getting its coat ready for winter.

 

And, while I was taking pictures of the fox, it was demonstrating that typical pouncy-jumpy style of hunting. No, those are not the professional terms of description of that behavior :)

 

 

Photo credit: Jasper Doest (NWF Photo of the Week)

This is what our observed fox was doing...so cool! Of course I couldn't get picture(s) of it doing this, because I was on the wrong side of the bus, and I was trying to watch as well as get the pictures.

 

 

 

Finally, I KNOW that the fox I saw is a red fox (Vulpes vulpes) because of that tell tale white tip on its tail. The other species of fox in Alaska is not the gray, but the Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus), which can be seen in several colors as well. But that tip of the red foxes tail can be just a few white hairs, to the whole end of the tail being white. BUT as long as there's white, it is a "red fox". Sometimes our plants and animals are inaccurately commonly named. The first person to ever see the red fox, saw a RED red fox. But they come in many colors.

 

Ever seen a black squirrel? That's the same thing as those fat, annoying gray squirrels that hang on your bird feeders. Sometimes animals come in different colors, different than their name!

 

Anyway, this was a really cool sighting, even thought the same species is common in New York, and I've seen it off. Cool color and behavior!