Virginia’s 974 fox squirrel records are strikingly lopsided. More than half sit in Accomack County, and Assateague Island National Seashore alone accounts for 530 records at named places, putting the Eastern Shore at the center of the species’ state record while the mainland contributes scattered counts from Loudoun to Highland.
The largest tree squirrel in the East
A fox squirrel outweighs a gray squirrel by half again or more, with a long, full tail and a deliberate, ground-foraging style. It favors open, mature woods, pine or oak with wide spacing and little understory, where it can travel on the ground between trees and bury nuts in open soil. The Eastern Shore’s open pinewoods around Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and Assateague fit that template closely. Mainland records trace similar country, from Jefferson National Forest and Claytor Lake State Park to the valley counties of Augusta and Rockingham.
A spring crest and a midsummer lull
Virginia’s counts climb through spring to a May high, then fall away to their lowest in August before recovering into autumn. Fox squirrels breed in winter and again toward early summer, and the spring rise matches a season of chases and dispersing young. Late summer, when the animals feed on ripening mast up in the crowns and heat presses activity into dawn and dusk, is when they are least often seen.
Status in Virginia
NatureServe ranks the fox squirrel S4, Apparently Secure, in Virginia, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
