California Ground Squirrels :Successful, a little unpopular
California Ground Squirrels:Successful, a little unpopular
By: Jon Hammond
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Posted by editor Thu Aug 10, 2006 15:29:27 PDT
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1 response 0 comments One of the familiar summertime sounds of Tehachapi’s rolling hills and valley oak savanahs is a high, piercing chirp uttered at five seconds intervals. Visitors often question what bird is making that sound. The answer is no bird at all: it is the shrill alarm bark of the California Ground Squirrel.
These medium-sized rodents are common throughout the Tehachapi area, except where the grasses or vegetation are thickest — ground squirrels can move fast but are not exceptional sprinters, so they depend on a clear view of approaching danger to give them adequate time to reach the safety of their burrows.
To obtain a better view, ground squirrels often climb rocks, stumps, fence posts or even wire fences themselves to survey their surroundings.
When they do detect a potential threat, squirrels begin to utter the loud, shrill whistle that warns their neighbors and kin of an approaching predator. The silence between the single barks shrinks as danger draws nearer, and if the squirrel must take emergency refuge, like in an irrigation pipe or a wood pile, the alarm barks will become a penetrating staccato chirped in fairly rapid succession.
If the squirrel reaches the sanctuary of its own earthen burrow, however, it will cease barking even if dogs, cats or other predators are right outside their hole. This allows them to sound a continuous alarm if threatened in an insecure place, but doesn’t draw predators to their burrow or even confirm into which hole in a colony that a squirrel has disappeared.
California Ground Squirrels (Citellus beecheyi) are light-brownish overall, with white spots or dappling on their back and sides. They have a collar of pale fur on their neck and tan-colored bellies.
The Nüwa (Kawaiisu) Indians of Tehachapi call the ground squirrel eh-wutz and mention them in some stories and a least one children’s song. One Nüwa elder, Virginia McGill Ibalios, 94, told me that her grandfather called her “Eh-wutz” when she was 4 years old because she ate with her hands up close to her mouth like a squirrel with an acorn.
Ground squirrels are almost exclusively diurnal and seen only during daylight hours. Spring and summer are their times of greatest activity, and while they don’t go into true hibernation at our elevation, they do estivate, or enter a torpor inside their burrows and don’t come out until January or February.
While the first appearance of ground squirrels in the new year may coincide with a warm spell, that is often followed by storms and you can see ground squirrels foraging even while there is snow on the ground.
Ground squirrels eat mostly seeds and low herbs, but they also eat green grasses, fruit, nuts and grain of all kinds. Though mostly herbivores, ground squirrels will also eat road kill and other carrion.
Many creatures prey on ground squirrels, but they must be careful: ground squirrels are not defenseless. They can deliver a sharp bite and will if threatened. I had a red Queensland Heeler named Cassidy who could catch and dispatch the slower squirrels, but she often came back with a bloody lip from a squirrel bite. I am friends with brothers who have a “pet” ground squirrel, which has drawn blood from both brothers with deep bites.
Falconers are also reluctant to fly their birds on ground squirrels, which can cause a serious slow-healing injury if they bite into the thin skin and bone of a raptor’s leg. In our area, only red-tailed hawks and golden eagles seem to hunt squirrels regularly, though our winter migrant bald eagle has learned to catch ground squirrels down on Tejon Ranch property near the Arvin cut-off.
Coyotes and bobcats both dine on ground squirrels, especially young ones, which lack the survival skills and tenacity of their elders. Badgers also consume ground squirrels, not by speed or stealth but simply by using their own formidable excavation skills to dig them out.
Many people dislike ground squirrels for the damage they can cause with their burrows, for the harm they can do to a grain field, and because they can carry sylvatic plague, which is the same organism that may lead to bubonic plague in humans.
Many other animals, however, make use of the ground squirrel’s digging ability and occupy old burrows, including toads, lizards, snakes, mice, skunks, and more. Ground squirrels continue to thrive in Tehachapi and their calls echo on warm afternoons . . .
Have a good week.
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