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Old 23-07-2003, 08:02 PM
paghat
 
Posts: n/a
Default Squirrels in my oak tree

In article , Salty Thumb
wrote:

"BT" wrote in
:

paghat, could you please indicate your source for the above
information you have shared with us. Or perhaps explain why grey
squirrels that live in a park next to houses with birdfeeding stations
filled with sunflower seeds and cracked corn still find the need to
eat tree buds every year?


seasonal dietary needs? I don't know about you, but if I were a dog, I'd get
tired of eating dried kibble everyday. or maybe the squirrels have learned to
stay way from humans and birdfeeders ... not worth the hassle.

a thick layer of fat (Banfield 1974; Woods 1980). This squirrel also
stockpiles a winter supply of food in underground storage piles called
middens. ", taken from
http://srmwww.gov.bc.ca/risc/pubs/te...iscml20-07.htm


I always thought that a midden was a dung pile and not stock pile.


In the term's special usage with red squirrels, the midden is the visible
part of a red squirrel's cache or larder hoard (the actual area of the
food is called the larder hoard, not the midden that may be the larder
hoard's cap). The larder hoard usually consists of cone scales & forest
floor rubble pushed over a depression in the ground. This will USUALLY be
underneath a midden heap, but not invariably, as some of the squirrel
larders are in rotting trees, & the midden heap on the ground outside. For
red squirrels the larder hoard is primarily pine cones or spruce cones.
Occasionally a midden is just a rubble pile with no cache behind it (in a
rotting out tree) nor under it (in the ground), as the squirrel will have
a "feeding branch" the next tree over, from which it has a particularly
good view of the environment as it eats, & a midden will accumulate under
a feeding branch separate from the larder horde.

When speaking short-hand rather than drawing a fuller picture, the
distinction between the midden & the larder is not apt to be made, even
though they're not invariably together.

But the REALLY incorrect thing about BT's mere paragraph of "knowledge"
is that he quotes a website on grey squirrels, WHICH DO NOT BUILD MIDDENS!
Greys & reds both hoard food for the winter, but a grey squirrel's hoard
is called a "scatter hoard" which will be over a more extensive area of
individually "planted" beechnuts or acorns (or whichever local yummies
they rely on) rather than a larder in one place. I won't fault BT too
much for not knowing the difference, only for pretending to know anything
at all; for it was a government website, & one would expect to be able to
trust it a bit more than 99% of google hits, most of which contain even
more outrageous nonsense.

The page was clearly patched together by a government flunky who did a
pretty good job for a government flunky who was not even permitted to sign
the work. It was based on serious works, but clearly no one actually
knoweldgeable checked the condensation & redaction for errors. Most of the
synoptic statements credit sources (the synopsiser seems not read many of
the primary sources himself, but copied the citations from some longer
overview).

The majority of the page is a pretty good job, but more than the midden
error reveals no personal working knowledge on the synopsizer's part. No
source at all is offered for the midden statement, because it was not from
any of the articles being condensed -- the condenser obviously felt safe
tacking on the one thing he thought he actually knew. Any of us might make
the same sort of mistake if we'd been given that government flunky's task.
When I write a monograph for publication (such as most recently on
American victorian author Alice Brown), I have others knowledgeable in my
field go over the near-final draft, hoping exactly that sort of goofy
error will be spotted; given that the government flunky was out of his
depths, he did a damned good job. And of course BT, not knowing anything
of the topic personally, is to be forgiven for not recognizing even such a
howling error, for goshwow, the government flunky uses big terms like
Biogeoclimatic Zone. That might've fooled me too if I hadn't an actual
interest in rodents & a working knowledge a bit greater than can be
instantly googled.

The food habits section of the page was just generally very poorly done,
so a bit unfortunate it was BT's favorite bit. It would indeed cause
know-nothings to assume bird eggs & flower buds are a food equal in
importance to nuts & berries for grey squirrels. The list even includes
leaves. A squirrel on a diet of leaves & buds would literally starve to
death because its caloric expenditure would be five or ten times its
caloric intake! And squirrels VERY RARELY touch bird eggs. It's "heard
of," yes, but only just; for many squirrels will eat vastly more pizza
crusts in their lifetimes than will ever raid bird nests, so why weren't
pizza crusts on that list? Although the assertion is not incorrect,
because it DOES happen, the paragraph on food choices does not give a
correct general picture. So, BT found a frankly stupid list, first of all
wildly incomplete leaving off primary diet items but including less common
ones -- so that closing with the stupidest of all statements, that grey
squirrels build middens, just caps the worst part of the government
flunky's condensations & redactions.

It's a classic case of why anyone who relies exclusively on google
searches for the full sum of their knowledge will rarely acquire a working
knowledge of anything.

-paghat the ratgirl


-- Salty


--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/