New Hampshire’s occurrence data holds 2,115 eastern chipmunk records, ranking it fourth by record count among the 54 New Hampshire mammals tracked in this survey, with a sighting from July 2026 the most recent.
Notches and stone walls both work
A chipmunk digs a burrow system among rocks, downed logs, or root tangles and needs enough cover nearby to dash for when startled. New Hampshire’s mountain notches, Crawford Notch and Franconia Notch among them, offer exactly that combination: boulder fields and talus slopes right against mixed hardwood-conifer forest edges. The stone walls and hedgerows threading through the Merrimack Valley’s old farmland give a chipmunk the same setup in gentler country, which is one reason the species turns up in both landscapes.
Records build to a fall rush
Reports climb through spring, peak in early summer, then rise again in September as chipmunks race to fill underground stores with acorns and beechnuts before the ground freezes. Records drop close to zero by December, when a chipmunk pulls back into its burrow for long stretches of winter dormancy rather than staying visible above ground.
Status in New Hampshire
The eastern chipmunk is native to New Hampshire, and NatureServe ranks it S5, secure. Its knack for using rocky, broken ground wherever it finds it, from a mountain notch to an old stone wall, keeps it well represented across the state’s records.
