Of 1,005 Delaware records for the eastern gray squirrel, First State National Historical Park and Trap Pond State Park hold the largest single shares, but the species really belongs to every hardwood stand in the state, from the oak and beech woods above Brandywine Creek to the forested swamps of southern Sussex County.
Living on the mast crop
Gray squirrels are built around tree seeds, with acorns, hickory nuts, beechnuts, and walnuts making up the bulk of the diet. Delaware’s mature hardwoods at White Clay Creek and Brandywine Creek State Parks are classic gray squirrel country, while Killens Pond and Lums Pond State Parks hold them along wooded shorelines. Buds, flowers, fungi, and the occasional bird egg fill the gaps when mast runs short.
The fall rush you can hear
Delaware’s records peak in April and May, when spring litters leave the nest, and climb again in October, the scatter-hoarding season. Each autumn a squirrel buries hundreds of nuts one at a time across the forest floor, relocating most of them later by smell and memory, and the ones it misses plant next year’s oaks. It does not hibernate; on mild winter days it is out digging through leaf litter for its own caches, which keeps the record alive in every month.
Status in Delaware
NatureServe ranks the eastern gray squirrel S5, Secure, in Delaware, and the species is native here. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
