Red Squirrels Are Bullies

Today was about as windy as it can be and still what I would consider safe enough to stay out. On very windy days, the top branches of trees can just start snapping off and fall. Sometimes they are small, but some are big and will stick in the ground. Also, it has been so wet this year, the ground is soft and trees are still apt to just go over in a gust. So if it seems crazy windy, I'll stay out of the timber.

Besides the trees, hunting is tough on windy days. The deer are sketched right out and it very tough to hear anything. The wind hampers the deer's senses and they are spooked by the crashing branches, so they try to be ultra-alert to compensate. This makes getting close to them almost impossible; you have to let them come to you.

Red squirrels, right, back on topic. A couple days ago, I watched a gray squirrel foraging on the ground along the edge of the evergreen stand where my treestand is. Out of nowhere, a red charged him and began to chase him away. After a thirty yard chase, the red stopped and the gray kept moving. Just when the gray had resumed foraging, another red bolted out of another tree and chased the gray even further away.

The reds knew exactly where the ground that had acorns on it was and where it ended. Once the gray was pushed out of that area, they just went back to their trees and ignored him. By now, most of the acorns are out of the trees, so the battle is for the ground. Thing is, the grays actually do most of the work. I see them up in the high branches, shaking the acorns loose frequently, but I never see the reds up there doing any of the work.

But by far, I saw the the most violent attack a few weeks back. In the tree branches, about twenty feet off the ground I saw a red squirrel catch up with a gray and what happened next surprised me. The red pounced on the gray's back, wrapping him up and rolled out of the branches in a suicidal attempt to wrench the gray out of the tree. Once both squirrels were falling, the red released the gray and grabbed on to a branch a few feet below! The gray fell to the ground and ran off, shaken, but apparently uninjured.

So, these are my basis for the conclusion that red squirrels are bullies of the forest. I have yet to see anything to the contrary and while I am sure the predators are plenty aggressive, the reds are the most aggressive of the furry little critters.