Chippy

My grandfather called them “chippies”, a coworker called them “grinnies” – chippies for the sound they make, most frequently in the fall; grinnies because they so often make you smile. They're eastern chipmunks, one of the most abundant mammals east of the Great Plains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And they do make us smile; with their reddish fur set off by five dark stripes on the back and sides and two light strips between the dark stripes on the sides, they're attractive – many would say cute – animals; although they live in underground burrows, they're active in daylight so we see them frequently; their tendency to use elevated places from which they have a wide-ranging view makes them even more visible.

 

 

 

 

Since chipmunks prefer forest edges, they're often abundant in wooded suburbs. Wherever chipmunks live, they favor forested hillsides, piles of rocks, stone walls, log piles, fallen trees and other areas where they can find refuge from predators and excavate their long burrows which include storage, sleeping and toilet chambers.

Chipmunks typically mate twice a year and give birth in April and July. When the young are nine or ten weeks old the female drives them from her territory and they have to find their own way in the world.

Nuts, berries, seeds, insects, birds' eggs and nestlings and earthworms are their normal diet – many years ago I photographed (poorly) a chipmunk eating the flesh from the head of a newborn rabbit –

Although chipmunks normally spend the winter sleeping in their underground burrows, they do periodically awake to eat from the stockpile of stored food that they had gathered during warm weather. If they run short of food or during warm periods they will emerge from their burrows –

 

 

The chipping of chipmunks is a familiar woodland sound in the fall –

 

Although these small mammals have a whole repertoire of calls, including warning calls about aerial predators and a different call for ground predators, the autumnal calls are thought to be territorial calls to warn other chipmunks away from the resident's burrow with its food stockpile.

 

They go on chipping and making us smile with their antics, earning the nick-names of Chippy and Grinny.