![]() ![]() Most individuals are buffy beneath and more or less chestnut-colored dorsally (photo above), with bold longitudinal stripes that go from shoulder to rump but not quite to the base of the tail. The species name-meaning "furrowed" or "striped"-is equally descriptive of an Eastern Chipmunk's most noticeable external characteristic. (Flying Squirrels are in a different subfamily.) The Eastern Chipmunk's genus name comes from the same Greek word, tamias, which means a "treasuer" or "storer" and refers to the animal's penchant for hoarding large amounts of food. This frenzy occurs shortly after dawn and again in late afternoon as the sun drops lower on the horizon (above and below) two hours before dusk we're almost guaranteed to see the short, erect ears and black, beady eyes of a chipmunk peering over the edge of a log or low rock wall, surveying its surroundings in golden sunlight before madly dashing out for another cheekload of seed.Įastern Chipmunks, Tamias striatus, are true rodents, with two sharp upper incisors that match and slide against two more in the lower jaw they are classified in the Sciurinae, the subfamily of Rodentia:Sciuridae that includes ground squirrels, marmots, and tree squirrels. And this week at Hilton Pond they seemed especially frantic, dashing from one bird feeder to the next, gathering sunflower seeds the chickadees had dropped or stuffing cheek pouches with big dry kernels of yellow corn. ![]() By early October they're even climbing trees to harvest crimson red berries from our Flowering Dogwoods. Suddenly we see these little striped rodents scurrying everywhere, drinking from the bird bath, calling from logs, and gathering early acorns and hickory nuts. It's about that time when Eastern Chipmunks-seemingly absent from the property during the heat of summer-begin to reappear. In mid-September each year, there's a small but noticeable change in mammal activity at Hilton Pond Center. ![]()
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