Looks like the park workers planted lots of squirrel seeds this past winter: suddenly the path just north of Pickleweed Place is aswarm with at least a trillion baby California Ground Squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi).

Wikipedia tells me that California Ground Squirrels belong to a family of rodents that also includes marmots and prairie dogs. Some are big and some are small. Most can rise up on their hind legs and rest, standing erect. They tend to be more gregarious than other squirrels. Many live in social colonies.

Their enemies include snakes, eagles, raccoons, red foxes, badgers and weasels. On Monday I saw one of our Red-Tailed Hawks fly by carrying a little Ground Squirrel. At this baby stage, they’re easy to spot and catch.

The California Ground Squirrel eats leaves, stems, flowers, seeds, berries, fruit, insects and small animals.

Rattlesnake Protection. Interestingly, Ground Squirrels have some specialized defenses for one of their primary predators: rattlesnakes. A few populations have developed some immunity to venom. Mother Ground Squirrels chew on the shed skins of rattlesnakes and then lick themselves and their pups to mask their scent. They also kick sand to annoy the snakes into rattling so they can detect their position and they appear to be able to fool the rattler’s infra-red sensing organs by swishing their tails.

Down Is Safe. Although Ground Squirrels can climb trees, they prefer to stay on or under the ground and duck into a hole when threatened.

California Ground Squirrels excavate burrows. The occupy some burrows communally, as appears to be the case with our nearest Baylands population.

The burrows of the California Ground Squirrel range in length from 5 to 35 feet.

They make three types of burrows:

• Hiding burrows, dug for emergency purposes, are numerous short dead-end tunnels around the main burrow.
• Nesting burrows are created for females to deliver and raise their litters.
• Hibernating burrows store food for the winter.

Clean Doorsteps. Although theses burrows look like tunnels of gophers and moles, Ground Squirrels don’t leave dirt around the entrance. They take extra dirt from burrowing and tamp it down with their heads and feet. The burrows of Ground Squirrels are about the diameter of a 50-cent piece.

Although the path by Pickleweed Place is teeming with baby Ground Squirrels, as the path turns north the squirrels disappear. You have to walk to the far north side of Baylands before you encounter another significant population.

Here are some pictures I grabbed Wednesday morning along the path.

Tags: Baylands, Photos, Snakes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Baylands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.