Those Adorable Pesky Chipmunks...

I saw my first chipmunk one week ago running along their favorite highway, the top of my retaining wall. For the most part this is their main thoroughfare back and forth from a patch of woods to their burrows and they usually hustle along it, though one will occasionally drop down to explore my wife’s flowers. Over the years I’ve found a number of their burrows, but the most frustrating of all was the year they called my house their house.

 That year they chewed a hole into my wood siding and probably carved out a nice living room, bedroom, kitchen and dining room somewhere in the walls of my house. It took some hardware cloth and tin to discourage them and now they stick to burrowing underground where I will continue to enjoy them despite the occasional flower bulb or garden vegetable they consume.

You’ll never see a pile of dirt outside the burrow of a chipmunk. The dirt is deposited well away from the entrance to avoid attracting the attention of predators. The burrows can be a simple tunnel and chamber, or a complex series of tunnels and multiple chambers several feet beneath the surface where the temperatures are more tolerable. The chambers will be located at the deepest part of the burrow and will serve as sleeping quarters and for food storage.

In winter they retire to the shelter of their burrows, where in the coldest weather they will go into a light hibernation. Different than the true hibernators like the Woodchuck, the Chipmunks will be awake during the milder weather moving freely around the burrow and feeding on their stockpile of food.

In March the chipmunks emerge and prepare to raise a family that will consist of two to seven young. A second litter may be born later in the summer. It is fair to say that the population of chipmunks could easily get out of hand were it not for predators like the fox, coyote, weasel and hawk.

It is in the late summer and fall that the hustle and bustle of the chipmunk is fascinating to watch as they stuff vast quantities of seeds, nuts, fruits and other items into their cheek pouches. When the cheek pouches appear ready to burst, the chipmunks carry it to their burrows where it will be stored for use in the winter months.

The chipmunk is a perfect example of a species whose life habits generate multiple benefits to other forms of wildlife, not only in the burrows they dig and the seeds they scatter, but also as an important part of a natural food chain. They are one of our most visible mammals, and certainly one of the cutest and most entertaining. Though from time to time they can be a nuisance and cause some damage to our yards, they are delightful to watch and are well worth keeping around.