Sudden lack of squirrels

[FormerParatrooper]

My backyard has been a squirrel haven for years. This spring I counted 15 different squirrels between my house and the neighbors. About the middle of October they all seem to have left. I don't remember a time in at least 25 years that there was not a population. And it is not just my yard, but everywhere in the area. One neighbors walnut tree had a bumper year, and no squirrels getting them. Even the couple of rabbits that have lived under another's neighbors deck seem to disappeared as well.

The raccoons are still around, and there are at least two bobcats around, but haven't caught them on my home cameras. I have seen their scat and tracks about 2 miles away by the pond I fish occasionally.  

Just seems odd that they all just up and left. Anyone noticing missing critters?

[Mags]

Ours disappeared once the filbert nuts came out. The nuts have since been harvested and we are now seeing some squirrels return.

[Ozarkwoodswalker]

There are accounts of mass squirrel migrations. I have no idea if it happens but i know of one year maybe 30 years ago around here when for a time in the fall we saw literally hundreds of killed squirrels on the highways around here where they had been trying to cross the highways.. its certainly common to see a ran over squirrel or two every day or two if you go two or three miles down the highway... but hundreds was a very odd thing to see... never happened before or since.
Still plenty of squirrels here today.... mysterys happen if you observe is about all im sure of

[clovishound]

I will happily give you all of mine. Come and get them.

[cooperhawk]

The road to indecision is paved with flat squirrels.

We have an abundance of the little acorn eaters including a pure white one.

Is that sacred like a white buffalo?

The acorn crop this year is enormous.

[Hatchdog]

Seems like the tree squirrels around here disappear in the winter. I just assumed they go into hibernation like the ground squirrels do. No nut trees around but it seems like the population has been increasing the last couple of years. They love to eat pinecones but they sure leave a mess behind.

[dave77]

I used to have a fair amount of groundhogs around my place every year. At that time I didn't plant a garden, just a couple of tomato plants that they didn't bother. They mostly just ate my dandelions which was fine, had one that insisted on burrowing into the pump house but some medium sized rocks around the perimeter stopped that. One year they never showed up in the Spring as usual and it's been well over 5 years since I've seen one.

[cooperhawk]

When I lived out East I used to hunt groundhogs with a good friend. The Shenandoah Valley was overrun with them.
A dairy farmer once invited us to clean them out of a 100 acre pasture for him and I remarked that he had overgrazed
the pasture as the grass was eaten down to the roots. He said that he had not pastured his cattle at all in that pasture
that groundhogs had eaten the grass. They were like rats. Holes under ever rock and boulder. We shot hundreds and
hundreds of them that Summer.

I called that good shootin. I was using a Ruger M77 round top with a varmint barrel in .220 Swift with a 12 power Luepold.
We hand loaded all our ammo and bought powder in the small kegs. I was loading a 54 grain boat tailed hollow point from Sierra and loaded the velocity down to about 3800 FPS. That way you didn't burn the barrel out as the full load would do. We had both tuned our
loads for accuracy.

We didn't miss much. Those were good days.

[fortyshooter]

Plenty of squirrels around my place. Between the squirrels and cats running around ol' Buster stays busy!

[Cowboy Gun Fan]

Plenty still around here too. One or two keep going up on my metal roof, will wake me up early in the morning. I've chased them off dozens of times. Finally got my Henry 22 loaded by the door and shot off a couple near them for them to get the message. They are supposed to be somewhat intelligent. Time will tell if they get the message.

[The Happy Kaboomer]

When the food source dries up........They move/relocate.

[graywolf]

Yep. No shortage of them around here either.

[2ffat]

The squirrels in my yard chew holes into our attic and spend the winter there. In the summer, it gets too hot for them and they abandon the attic. I patch the holes they make and it starts all over. I wish we had a lack of squirrels.

[FormerParatrooper]

Squirrels didn't go extinct at least, they just moved away. Maybe they went south for the winter?

[markiver54]

20240130_153721.jpg (1.83 MiB) Viewed 1071 times

This is a common sight around here. Taken this afternoon.

[cooperhawk]

That is a variation of the gray squirrel. We have a few of them around here as well.

[markiver54]

Most of them have a thin grey stripe down their back. We know who they like to hang out with.

[daytime dave]

Wow, we don't have any white ones here. We have gray and solid black.
Very cool Mark.

[BrokenolMarine]

With two coops and around 100 chickens, the squirrels loved the farm in VA. They would slip in during the day when the coop doors were open while the chickens free ranged for bugs, snakes, and lizards. They would fill up on chicken feed. Tina was raising Heritage Chickens so she fed quality feed and it was NOT cheap. She got real tired of the thieves pretty quick. (They also liked to chew on the woodwork when the coop was locked up, trying to break in.)

I bought the CZ455 .22 with the Nikon Scope and Miss Tina became the Carlos Hathcock of Cumberland County, "One Shot, One Kill." She would shoot from inside the enclosed side porch. It was enclosed with lattice, so she could see out but the climbing roses and Clematis covering the latticework provided great concealment. Squirrel would drop, another would run over to check on him and crack, twofer. After a dozen or so the whole group would move over to the next farm down, proving another poster's point that the squirrels are pretty smart... For a few weeks, then come back, proving they have short memories...

The lesson would start over.

[CT_Shooter]

This is a common sight around here. Taken this afternoon.

The Sacred White Swirl!