A. Squirrels' nests, also called dreys, may look like haphazard clumps of leaves but are actually fairly complex in their construction, with several layers of different materials.
|
|
Fox squirrels are strictly diurnal, non-territorial, and spend more of their time on the ground than most other tree squirrels. They are still, however, agile climbers. They construct two types of homes called "dreys", depending on the season. Summer dreys are often little more than platforms of sticks high in the branches of trees, while winter dens are usually hollowed out of tree trunks by a succession of occupants over as many as 30 years.
|
|
Also Ural owls may regularly use stick nests of larger birds such as various accipitrids, in particular those built by goshawks and buzzards, as well as black stork (Ciconia nigra) nests, common raven (Corvus corax) nests and squirrel dreys, though dreys and nests of smaller birds such as sparrowhawks and crows may present risk of regularly collapsing as they may be overly small and perhaps flimsily built. A highly unusual nest site in terms of regional habitat was recorded in Slovakia, in the Východoslovenská Plains, a lowland floodplain, within an old buzzard nest.Balla, M. (2010). Ural owl (Strix uralensis) nesting in floodplain forest in the Východoslovenská rovina Plain.
|
|
Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) drey A drey is the nest of a tree squirrel or a flying squirrel. Dreys are usually built of twigs, dry leaves, and grass, and typically assembled in the forks of a tall tree.Lawniczak, M. (2002)."Sciurus carolinensis", Animal Diversity Web.
|
|
Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting of the UCHRT, Dec. 1971. Drey, Kay, Queeny Park Collection. It was necessary to use the University City Residential Service, a non-profit office co-founded by the Dreys, to find white applicants. But one white couple threatened to sue, charging that the UCHRT discriminated against families without school-age children.
|
|
Their young are raised in the deepest chambers where the temperature is the most stable. Many mammals, including raccoons and skunks, seek natural cavities in the ground or in trees to build their nests. Raccoons, and other rodents, use leaves to build nest underground and in trees. Tree squirrels build their nests (dreys) in trees, while voles nest in tall grass.
|
|
Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station: 414–421 Fox squirrels have two types of shelters: leaf nests (dreys) and tree dens. They may have two tree cavity homes or a tree cavity and a leaf nest. Tree dens are preferred over leaf nests during the winter and for raising young.
|
|
Mexican fox squirrels typically produce a single small litter of 1 or 2 young in late spring or summer. Mexican fox squirrels nest in ball-shaped dreys composed of sticks and leaves in trees; cavities within large trees are occasionally used, especially by nursing females. They are known to communally nest at times. Mexican fox squirrels are notably silent and appear to prefer to seek cover and remain motionless.
|
|
Western gray squirrel eating a pinecone.Squirrel nests are called dreys and can be seen in trees, built from sticks and leaves wrapped with long strands of grass. There are two stick nest types made by the western gray squirrel: the first is a large, round, covered shelter nest for winter use, birthing, and rearing young. The second is more properly termed a "sleeping platform," a base for seasonal or temporary use.
|
|
Their dreys (or nests), to be found in branches high up in the trees, are built from leaves and twigs. Their food consists of soft fruit, nuts and seeds, whilst Reid in 2009 concluded that their main diet consists of flowers, buds, and shoots. Females generally give birth to two or three young during the April to August dry season. They are predated by birds of prey, wild cats and dogs, procyonids, primates, and snakes.
|
|
Earliest litters appear in late January; most births occur in mid-March and July. The average litter size is three, but can vary according to season and food conditions. Tree cavities, usually those formed by woodpeckers, are remodeled to winter dens and often serve as nurseries for late winter litters. If existing trees lack cavities, leaf nests known as dreys are built by cutting twigs with leaves and weaving them into warm, waterproof shelters.
|
|
The eastern gray squirrel is one of very few mammalian species that can descend a tree head-first. It does this by turning its feet so the claws of its hind paws are backward-pointing and can grip the tree bark. Eastern gray squirrels build a type of nest, known as a drey, in the forks of trees, consisting mainly of dry leaves and twigs. The dreys are roughly spherical, about 30 to 60 cm in diameter and are usually insulated with moss, thistledown, dried grass, and feathers to reduce heat loss.
|
|
They are sometimes referred to as "drey nests" to distinguish them from squirrel "cavity nests" (also termed "dens"). In temperate regions, dreys become much more visible in the autumn, when leaf-fall reveals new nests built the previous summer or in early fall. A favoured site for a drey is a tree crotch about above ground level. Squirrels may also nest in attics or exterior walls of buildings, where a drey may be regarded as a fire hazard, as some squirrels have a habit of gnawing on electrical cables.
|
|
Male and female squirrels may share the same nest for short times during a breeding season, and during cold winter spells squirrels may share a drey to stay warm. However, females nest alone when pregnant. In North America, squirrels produce broods of about three "pups" twice a year. (After leaving the drey, a young squirrel is termed a "juvenile" for its first year of life.) The June broods are sometimes born in dreys, but January broods are usually born and raised in tree cavities, which are much safer.
|
|
A favourite nesting site is a hole in a rotting tree-stump, often low down, and the nest is deep within the hole; holes in the ground, burrows of mice or rabbits, chinks between the stones in walls, old nests of Pica magpies or other large birds, and squirrel dreys are also occupied. The materials, moss, hair and grass, are closely felted together, and rabbit fur or feathers added for lining. Seven to eleven red-spotted white eggs are laid, usually in May; this species breeds usually once per year.
|
|
Their tail has thick brown hair on top while calloused and hairless underneath. The Pseudochirulus mayeri also have “an opposable first toe on their hind feet, and their second and third toes are syndactylus.” These possums make dreys, or nests, “in the forks of trees, less than four meters off the ground.” These nests consist of foliage similar to moss and lichen and they enter into “state[s] of partial torpor” during the day. Therefore, they “are nocturnal, solitary, arboreal herbivores” that do not travel far at night from their drey because they are small and slow moving.
|
|
The western ringtail is an arboreal and nocturnal herbivore with a relatively small home range of 0.5-6 ha, dependent on habitat type. It uses tree hollows and builds dreys for shelter in tree canopies, their nest-like drey is an assemblage of shredded bark, twigs and leaves. They are primarily arboreal, but will move through understorey or open ground to feed or gain shelter when the tree canopy is unconnected. Sheltering at ground level is recorded, though not usual, more frequently be found at hollows and the upper story of a forest; the species has occasionally be seen to occupy rabbit burrows.
|
|
Northern flying squirrel squirrel box off the Blue Ridge Parkway Northern flying squirrels generally nest in holes in trees, preferring large-diameter trunks and dead trees, and will also build outside leaf nests called dreys and will also nest underground. Tree cavities created by woodpeckers as suitable nest sites tend to be more abundant in old-growth forests, and so do the squirrels, though harvested forests can be managed in ways that are likely to increase squirrel numbers. Except when rearing young, the squirrels shift from nest to nest frequently. They often share nests during winter months, forming aggregations.
|
|
Territory lines often remain the same even after the original owls are replaced entirely by a new pair. It was thought in Nova Scotia that some pairs may prospect a potential nest site as much as year before they use it. Despite usually using sickly or dying trees, some nests have found in partially hollow but still living oaks. Barred owl nestlings peer out of the typical nesting site, a spacious tree hollow. Usually in areas with few or no natural tree hollows, often within younger secondary forests or overharvested areas, this species will uses other birds’ nests and occasionally also the dreys of squirrels.
|
|
There are reasons to believe that the original host of C. gallinae was a tit, but the flea is now present, via domestic poultry, on numerous islands where there are no representatives of the tit family. The tit family does provide the optimal reproductive conditions for C. gallinae, suggesting that it is the main host of this species. This flea has often been recorded from squirrels' dreys, and squirrel fleas have been found in birds' nests. When a domestic cat catches a bird, it often plays with it, and as the bird cools, any fleas it carries are likely to transfer to the warm-blooded cat.
|
|
The western ringtail is confined to south-western Western Australia where it is now reduced to patches of mainly eucalypt forest between Two Peoples Bay and the Collie River, with the most inland population at Perup. The species favours coastal forest habitat still dominated by Agonis flexuosa (weeping peppermint) and eucalypt forest that has not been subject to modern logging and fire practices. Strongholds for the population in the distribution range include urban gardens and reserves in the cities of Busselton and Albany, where refuge from fire and foxes has been found. Urban populations surveyed in the city of Albany have revealed an average individual range of 0.88 hectares, moving from their dreys in the day to their preferred night-time habitat in eucalypts.
|
|
Drey, Kay Queeny Park Collection and that something unusual would need to be done to draw whites to the area and keep the school integrated. He believed that young,well-educated, growing, "highly-mobile" families were seeking to rent quality houses and that the marketplace was not meeting this demand. He further asserted that many of these people were enlightened enough in racial attitudes to move into a mixed neighborhood, provided they were renting and not buying. Drey said that renters did not need to fear declining resale value, a key driver of white flight by homeowners.Kay Drey, "Background Information" In March 1968, the Trust was formed by the Dreys, Janet Becker, Alan Kohn, and other investors.Letter from W.G. Lorenz to J. Becker, March 4, 1968.
|
|