Recent shots of two species of Erie County, PA small mammal, Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger) & Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus). First, the former @ Scott Park, exhibiting interesting foraging behavior, perhaps for nutrient ingestion or sweet flavour due to sap flow. (Some vines in Scott Park are starting to bud.)
BirdingPI.com – the only website bringing you squirrels licking branches!
This team member has never licked a branch for sap, but has been known to smell Jeffrey pines and ponderosa pines for their sweet scents. Only on a warm day when the tree has had its sap flowing.
Also, the ‘critter’ on the top of the page looks like some kind of Scifi thing…..perhaps it’s “The Thing” on I10 east of Benson, AZ???