Squirrels — The Complete Guide
Everything you need to know about one of North America's most fascinating and overlooked backyard animals — from baby squirrels to black squirrels to what they eat and where they sleep
We watch squirrels every single day on our 30-acre Private Lands Wildlife Habitat in Michigan. Gray squirrels. Black squirrels. Fox squirrels. Red squirrels. Flying squirrels after dark. And every one of them is doing something remarkable if you stop long enough to watch.
Squirrels are one of the most studied and least appreciated animals in North America. They build multiple nests, maintain thousands of food caches, communicate through tail movements and alarm calls, and raise their young in a way that is surprisingly tender for an animal most people consider ordinary. This guide covers everything — from the moment a baby squirrel is born blind and hairless to the winter strategies of an adult that never truly sleeps.
Squirrel Quick Facts — What Most People Don't Know
Squirrels can find buried nuts under a foot of snow. They use a combination of spatial memory and an extraordinary sense of smell — up to 10 times more powerful than a human's — to relocate food caches months after burying them. The ones they miss become trees. Squirrels have planted more forests than most people realize.
Types of Squirrels — More Than You Think
When most people say "squirrel" they mean the gray squirrel raiding their bird feeder. But North America alone has dozens of squirrel species ranging from the tiny American red squirrel to the large fox squirrel to the ghostly black squirrel that stops people in their tracks. On our Michigan property we see five different species regularly.
The most common squirrel in eastern North America. Highly adaptable, intelligent, and the primary architect of the food-caching behavior that makes squirrels essential to forest regeneration. Adults weigh 14–21 oz and live 6–12 years in the wild.
Not a separate species — black squirrels are a melanistic color variant of the Eastern Gray or Fox Squirrel. The black coloration is caused by a genetic mutation that produces excess melanin. We see them regularly on our property alongside gray squirrels.
Complete Black Squirrel Guide →The largest tree squirrel in North America, with a distinctive rusty-orange belly. Fox squirrels prefer open woodland edges and agricultural areas — exactly the habitat our 30-acre property provides. Slower and bolder than gray squirrels.
Small, fiery, and extraordinarily territorial. Red squirrels are the most vocal squirrel in North America — their chattering alarm call is one of the most distinctive sounds of the northern forest. They cache food in centralized larders called middens rather than burying individual nuts.
The secret squirrel. Flying squirrels are nocturnal and rarely seen, but they are abundant across the northern United States and Canada. They don't actually fly — they glide using a membrane called a patagium stretched between their front and back legs. Up to 150 feet in a single glide.
The prairie squirrel. Found in open grasslands and agricultural fields throughout the Midwest — including Gratiot County, Michigan. Unlike tree squirrels, ground squirrels are true hibernators, entering a deep torpor in which their body temperature drops to near freezing for months.
What Do Squirrels Eat — The Full Picture
Squirrels are opportunistic omnivores — not just nut collectors. Their diet is far more varied than most people realize and shifts dramatically with the seasons. In spring they eat buds, flowers, and fungi. In summer they add berries, insects, and even bird eggs. In fall they cache heavily. In winter they rely on what they've stored — and their remarkable ability to find it.
Can squirrels drink milk? It is one of the most searched squirrel questions on the internet — and the answer is nuanced. Adult squirrels should not be given cow's milk. Baby squirrels that are too young to eat solid food require a specific formula. Our dedicated guide covers exactly what to feed a squirrel at every life stage.
The full breakdown of squirrel diet by season, what to feed wild squirrels, what never to feed them, and the answer to whether squirrels can drink milk.
Read the complete guide →Squirrel Nests — Dreys, Dens, and Why Squirrels Build Both
Most people recognize a squirrel's nest — the messy ball of leaves lodged high in the fork of a bare winter tree. That is a drey, and it is more sophisticated than it looks. A well-built drey has an outer shell of woven twigs, a middle layer of leaves, and an inner lining of soft material — grass, moss, feathers, or shredded bark — that insulates against Michigan winters. A squirrel typically maintains two or three dreys simultaneously and switches between them to avoid predators and parasites.
Tree cavities are the preferred alternative — warmer, more secure, and better for raising young. Competition for good cavity sites is fierce among squirrels, woodpeckers, and wood ducks all on the same property.
How squirrels build dreys, how to tell a squirrel nest from a bird nest, what squirrels use for nesting material, and what to do if you find a nest with babies inside.
Read the complete guide →Do Squirrels Hibernate — The Answer Surprises Most People
The short answer is: most squirrels do not truly hibernate. Eastern gray squirrels, fox squirrels, and red squirrels remain active all winter — which is exactly why they spend so much of the fall caching food. They may hunker down during the worst weather for a few days at a time, but they are not in true hibernation. Their body temperature stays normal, their metabolism does not drop significantly, and they wake regularly to eat.
Ground squirrels are a completely different story. The thirteen-lined ground squirrel enters a deep physiological hibernation that is one of the most extreme metabolic states in the mammal world — heart rate dropping from 200 beats per minute to as few as 5, body temperature falling to near ambient air temperature. They are effectively cold to the touch and will not rouse even if handled.
The full breakdown of which squirrels hibernate, which don't, and how they survive Michigan winters through a combination of fat reserves, food caches, and brief periods of torpor.
Read the complete guide →Baby Squirrels — What to Do If You Find One
Finding a baby squirrel on the ground is one of the most common wildlife encounters in North America — and one of the most mishandled. Most baby squirrels that end up in human hands did not need to be rescued.
Baby squirrels are born blind, hairless, and completely helpless after a 44-day gestation. Their eyes don't open until around 5 weeks. They don't emerge from the nest until 10–12 weeks. If you find a baby squirrel on the ground, the first question is whether it fell from the nest accidentally or was truly abandoned.
A baby squirrel that is uninjured, warm, and found directly under a tree with a nest above it is almost certainly a fall — not an abandonment. The mother will come back for it if you give her the chance. A cold, injured, or clearly orphaned baby squirrel is a different situation entirely and needs specific care.
The single most important thing: If the baby squirrel is cold, warm it first — in your hands, against your body, on a heating pad set to low under half the container. A cold baby squirrel cannot digest food and feeding it before warming it can kill it. Warmth before food. Always.
What to do if you find a baby squirrel, how to tell its age, what to feed it and when, how to keep it warm, and when to call a wildlife rehabilitator. Our most-read guide.
Read the complete guide →Squirrel Houses & Feeders — Attract Squirrels to Your Property
If you want squirrels on your property — and the forest regeneration, entertainment, and ecological benefits that come with them — the right habitat setup makes a significant difference. Squirrel houses provide nesting cavities that natural old-growth trees once supplied in abundance. Squirrel feeders keep them visible and healthy through Michigan winters when natural food can be scarce under deep snow.
How to choose, place, and maintain a squirrel house — dimensions, entry hole size, mounting height, and the best locations on your property.
Read the complete guide →The best squirrel feeders, what to fill them with, where to place them, and how to keep them clean and safe through all four seasons.
Read the complete guide →Watch: Squirrel Goes Digging in a Graveyard — What He Finds Will Surprise You
We filmed this in a local cemetery in Gratiot County, Michigan — a little red squirrel doing exactly what red squirrels do best. He has no idea we are watching. He has no idea we find it funny. He is entirely focused on the task at hand — and the payoff is worth waiting for.
Filmed in a local Gratiot County cemetery — a red squirrel retrieving a buried nut next to a headstone
This is exactly how squirrels work. They cache food in hundreds of locations, return to them months later using spatial memory and scent, and dig with absolute precision through grass, leaves, and — apparently — the grounds of Gratiot County cemeteries. The buried nut is not stolen. It is recovered. Every squirrel you see digging is either storing something or retrieving something it stored weeks or months ago. They are managing a distributed pantry that would be genuinely impressive in any species.
Squirrels on Our 30-Acre Michigan Habitat
On our 30-acre property in Gratiot County, Michigan, squirrels are a constant presence. We have gray squirrels, black squirrels, fox squirrels, and red squirrels active from dawn to dusk, and northern flying squirrels visiting the feeders after dark. We have watched the same individuals return to the same feeder spots year after year, recognized by their markings and their habits.
The black squirrel in the photo above visits our feeders regularly alongside the gray squirrels — and the two interact with a casual familiarity that suggests they know each other well. Black squirrels are not rare on our property. We see them every week. But the photo of both color variants side by side is something we had been trying to capture for months before this shot came together.
Watching squirrels on a property where you have also built wildlife ponds, restored wetlands, and planted native habitat gives you a different perspective on what they are doing. They are not just raiding feeders. They are caching food across the entire property, selecting specific trees for specific reasons, and managing their territory with a sophistication that becomes obvious when you watch long enough.
We are a 30-acre wildlife conservation property in the geographic center of Michigan — a few miles from the Pine River in Gratiot County. The squirrels here are the same species that the Saginaw Chippewa watched along these same corridors for thousands of years. The habitat has changed. The squirrels have not.
Squirrels — Frequently Asked Questions
From baby squirrels to black squirrels to the ones digging up buried treasure in graveyards — we watch them every day on our Michigan habitat.
Browse All Wildlife Guides →