This morning I spied the Red Squirrel above running down a pine tree in the wooded area, so I moved closer in the hopes of getting in a shot or two. I stood and watched that squirrel for at least 10 minutes run up one tree and down another, under piles of brush and out the other side, through thickets of multiflora rose bushes, never more than 15 feet away from me, until he/she finally picked up a pine cone and sat and gnawed away on it. I figured there had to be a reason for the behaviour he was exhibiting, but the reason escaped me until he ran off and I took a closer look at the top of the brush pile where he had been eating. On it was a big patch of discarded cone scales, whole cones and cone 'cobs'. After a bit of searching on the internet, I found I had discovered a squirrel 'midden', or "central storage depot" as one article described it. Every squirrel has one, and they are vigorously defended. Some of them can be enormous. I had been standing close to the midden - I was encroaching on his territory but a little too big to chase off, so perhaps he was trying to divert me. This could have been a juvenile squirrel, and according to Wikipedia: "Juvenile American Red Squirrels must acquire a territory and midden prior to their first winter. Juveniles without a midden don't survive their first winter."
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