Finding Food Sources Key to Squirrel

Finding Food Sources Key To Squirrel

By Gerald Meyer

It was early September and the early morning fog was still draped over the ridge tops. The sun was probably peeking over the horizon, but we couldn’t tell for sure due to the fog. My dad and I were hunting gray squirrels on our farm which sprawled across Boltz Ridge about four miles from the Ohio River in southeast Ohio’s Monroe County. I was ten years old and this was the third squirrel season that dad had let me tag along with him. I knew the two basic rules for hunting squirrels: move quietly and slowly until you found an area where squirrels might be feeding, then stand very still, absorbing all the sounds and movement in the surrounding trees. We had been in the woods for almost an hour and had yet to see or hear anything that resembled a squirrel and I was getting bored.
The lack of action had invaded my head and, like any ten-year-old boy in the woods, I saw lots of interesting things to do. Pretending my arms were the chains on a swing, I reached out and grabbed a two-inch sapling in front of me and swung around it doing my best to imitate a chimpanzee on a vine. Several thousand drops of water clinging to the fog soaked leaves of the sapling rained down on me. My weight on the sapling moved its top in a long, fast arc and the leaves made a loud whooshing sound. Halfway into the swing, but too late to stop, I realized that any nearby squirrels would be alarmed by the sound and movement. Dad turned glaring at me from under the brim of his ball cap. “Do that again and you’ll stay home the next time,” his eyes said what he didn’t need to put into words. My dad wasn’t much of a talker, except when he thought I was doing something wrong, which seemed to me to be most of the time. But dad was a good squirrel hunter and I learned a lot from him.
Over forty years later I still enjoy chasing squirrels in the hills of southeast Ohio. Like any type of hunting, timing and location are important things to consider when pursuing squirrels. Timing is important because squirrels eat a variety of foods throughout the year. Knowing when they target a particular food and where they find it can improve hunting success throughout the hunting season. My dad taught me that a favorite food of squirrels early in the season is hickory nuts. Some hickory nuts, like shagbark hickory, become ripe enough for squirrels to eat by late August. When the hickory nut crop is scattered, some shagbark trees will be cut out, meaning all the nuts will be eaten before Ohio’s season opens in early September. Of the hickory tree species common in Ohio, squirrels prefer shagbark and mockernut. Shellbark is not as common as other hickories and the nuts have a very thick and heavy shell. Bitternut hickory is common, but it has a very bitter taste that most wild animals avoid. Shagbark, mockernut and shellbark hickory nuts usually have a sweet, mild flavor. I have eaten lots of cookies and cakes loaded with shelled nuts from shagbark hickory and black walnut trees. Pignut hickory nuts can vary in flavor and squirrels usually will feed on other hickories first.
Locating the foods squirrels prefer is just as important as knowing when squirrels are using them. In the hills of Ohio, I start the season looking for squirrels in hickory trees. Hickory trees grow best in the drier soils found on ridges and the upper one-third of the slopes that fall away from the ridge tops. Slopes that face to the east, southeast and west are the best places to look. But hickory trees can be found just about anywhere because historically, they have never had a lot of value as timber and were often left standing during logging operations.
When squirrel populations are up, they can “cut out” the hickory nut crop by late September. At that time, the oaks become another important tree group for squirrels. For hunting purposes, oak trees can be divided into two major groups: the white oaks and the red/black oaks. White oak acorns are preferred over red and black oak acorns by squirrels and most other wildlife including deer, turkey, black bear and even wood ducks. The white oak acorns contain less tannic acid, which probably explains why animals favor them. According to my taste buds, acorns from both tree groups are bitter. Acorns usually start to fall by the middle of September and come down in droves after the first hard frost in October. By late September, I usually switch my efforts to the oaks when hunting squirrels.
Like hickories, oak trees grow best in dry soils and can be found in the same general locations. Most often, white oaks are found on ridge tops, especially on south and southwest-facing slopes. Chestnut oak, which is a white oak, is commonly found growing on high, rocky, thin-soiled, south and west-facing ridges. Squirrels tend to treat chestnut oaks like they do pignut hickories, saving them for last or not using them at all when other nuts and acorns are abundant. Red and black oak trees tend to grow a little lower on all slopes except those facing to the north.
Squirrels readily feed on the nuts of American beech, buckeye and black walnut trees, especially when they are abundant and the hickory and oaks crops are poor. Infrequently, I have killed squirrels that were feeding on the seeds or fruit of maple, black cherry, dogwood and apple trees, and a couple of times while they were feeding on wild grapes.
Beech and buckeye trees grow best in moist soils and are usually found in the bottom half of valleys and coves and just about anywhere on north-facing hillsides. Walnut trees can be found on lower slopes and in valley bottoms. Fox squirrels, more than gray squirrels, seem to feed on the nuts of walnut trees. I can count on one hand the number of times I have killed a gray squirrel out of a walnut tree.
Keep in mind that natural resource managers use terms like “normally,” “usually,” “more commonly,” “preferred,” “generally,” “however,” and “most of the time” when talking or writing about wildlife and wildlife habitat. They do that because there are no rules that wild animals have to follow when it comes to which plants they feed on or when they start to use a particular food. The same applies to where you can find the different kind of trees and other plants that wild animals use. For example, I normally find gray squirrels on ridges in areas with large expanses of mature tree cover, which is their preferred habitat. More commonly I generally find fox squirrels in valleys near streams or in fence-rows near crop fields. However, I usually find a few fox squirrels on ridges and some gray squirrels next to crop fields every season.
Knowing the foods squirrels prefer, when the foods become ripe, and where to find them can make a big difference in consistently finding squirrels. For hunters who are unsure about identifying the different trees squirrels use, refer to a good tree identification manual and take it with you while hunting. Buy one that has photographs of the leaves and bark and has a range map for each tree. Most of the trees I have referred to here are common throughout much of the Appalachian Mountain area. But there are lots of species (especially the oaks) I have not mentioned that are less widespread. If you are good at identifying trees, take the manual with you anyway. Perhaps you will get the opportunity to take a young boy or girl squirrel hunting and the manual will help you keep them from getting distracted!