The fox squirrel is a tree squirrel in Colorado. Open occurrence databases hold 7,797 records for it here, 6,262 of them iNaturalist photos. That photo-heavy total says a lot about the animal: a large, orange-bellied squirrel that forages in daylight on lawns and low branches is one of the easiest mammals in the state to catch with a phone camera.
A squirrel of towns and cottonwoods, not the high country
This is a lowland and urban animal in Colorado. The records concentrate in the northern Front Range and the Denver metro plains, with Boulder, Denver, Larimer, and El Paso counties carrying the heaviest counts. It thrives in older neighborhoods, city parks, campuses, and the streamside cottonwood galleries that thread the South Platte and its tributaries, wherever mature nut and shade trees supply food and cavities. Fox squirrels spread west across the shortgrass plains as settlers planted trees and shelterbelts, so the modern Colorado range tracks human tree cover closely. You are far more likely to meet one at Barr Lake or Cherry Creek State Park than in a montane forest.
Active all year, busiest by day
Fox squirrels do not hibernate, so the occurrence record has no deep seasonal gap. What movement it shows reflects when people are out watching rather than any dormancy: the squirrel is on lawns and fences through every month, resting in leaf nests during hard weather. Breeding comes in two pulses, one in late winter and another in summer, with small litters raised in tree cavities.
Status in Colorado
The fox squirrel is native to Colorado and secure here, ranked S4 (apparently secure) by NatureServe and least concern by the IUCN. Any Front Range city park with big, spreading trees is a reliable place to find one.
