Did You know - outdoor edition

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know you can age Grey/"Cat" squirrels to a degree by looking for a reddish orange tint to their fur and tail? A young (under one year old) will be completely grey. Older squirrels will have spent more time in the sun and as a result have a reddish tint. The older the squirrel, the redder the tint. Keep that in mind if you are trying to choose between which squirrel to shoot for the pot or how long to par-boil if you have already shot them. Apparently squirrels spent a lot of time laying on limbs in the sun relaxing so their hair color reflects how much time they have been around on this earth and hanging out in the sun. 

    Another age check is the testicles on a male squirrel. A nearly empty sack it this years young, marble sized with complete hair coverage is probably about a year old. Big enough to make a boar hog envious and with most, if not all, of the hair worn off is an old, old squirrel. From what I have seen a squirrels testicles never seem to stop growing. :

[doc henderson]

yes, but how do they taste Howard?   :D

[KEC]

I would be cautious about aging a squirrel by the hair color. I once shot a deer that field dressed 144 lbs. and had a lot of gray hair on his muzzle. An old timer (to me at the time) looked at it and said it was an old deer. Took it to a deer check station and they aged it at 1yr 6months. 

[caveman]

yes, but how do they taste Howard?  

Probably kind of nutty.

[WV Sawmiller]

   They are kind or like eating a possum - Times ain't got that hard yet!

    Yes, there can be color phases that change this generality but its a safe bet to assume the squirrel with the red sides is older than the grey one. I guess there are exceptions with the testicle sizes too but I don't think I will go there. :

[doc henderson]

goodness gracious great balls of fire.  what do you do with the rest of the squirrel?        

[WV Sawmiller]

   The generally accepted procedure is to eat it. My old mentor would flour and fry them brown in a little oil then wrap them loosely in foil and float them on about an inch of water in a pressure cooker and cook them on 10 lbs pressure for about 10-15 minutes IIRC and the meat would just fall off the bones. He'd serve them with coarse, home grown/ground yellow grits with a pat of butter, hushpuppies and canned field peas he'd grown and canned himself. Very good eating.

 On a Cat squirrel as I remember you had 7 pieces - 2 hind legs, 2 front legs, the back was cut into 2 pieces and the head. His favorite piece was the head. He'd eat the brain, cheeks and tongue. I never begrudged him that tidbit. ;)

[KEC]

When I did wildlife control, gray squirrel control made up much of my calls and I trapped and killed a LOT of them. It is incredible how much variation there is in hair color. Black, black with rusty tinge, gray, gray with rusty tinge and combinations of colors. I would wager that the rusty tinge is largely hereditary. Any individual hairs are constantly falling out and being replaced so they would not turn red over years of time. Just my opinion, WV. I do believe, though, that older males are well endowed.

[terrifictimbersllc]

goodness gracious great balls of fire.  what do you do with the rest of the squirrel?      

Maybe get ideas from molasses manufacturers? :laugh:

[WV Sawmiller]

KEC,

Thanks for your input. I wonder if we are speaking about the same species (S. carolinensis IIRC).

I know I killed hundreds of them in my youth and there was not much color variation in the ones I killed except the older larger adults commonly had the reddish tint we always attributed to the sun - at least per my maternal grandfather and my experience has not seen anything to refute it.

I don't know if any Wildlife grad student has taken on the "Testicular growth and hair covering in Carolina Grey Squirrels" as his doctorate thesis. Its probably one of those studies that would take many years to reach to a scientific conclusion to follow the growth over many years and they have not been willing to invest the time and energy to do so. You have to know only a very small percentage pf your test subjects are going to reach a ripe old age and every time you see a red-tailed hawk flying off with lunch you will wonder if he just screwed up years of your research. >:( Anesthesia in small rodents is dangerous and has to be minimized and the squirrels become very irate when you try to handle and measure the Squirrel family jewels. Besides, what young man or woman, when invited to a party with all your old college and HS buddies, wants to explain the exciting news he/she has been uncovering about squirrel gonads. : In fact, as long as I have known about it, look how long it has taken me to bring it to light and many other members here are still reluctant to comment for fear of latent embarrassment. :D

[beenthere]

WV Sawmiller
Are you thinking anyone is doubting your "outdoor" knowledge in "did you know" ??   :D :D

[WV Sawmiller]

BT,

   I have had a number of my observations and comments justifiably challenged and sometimes corrected. It does my heart good when others add comments and observations from their time on the water and in the woods and even sometimes from other continents. As we all know nothing is ever set in stone with the outdoors and wildlife and I love to learn and compare notes with others. 

   I hope these observations trigger comments and discussion with the members kids and grandkids and our young folks learn to enjoy the outdoors as much as many of us have done. ;)

[Walnut Beast]

WV you do a nice job posting 👍

[Hilltop366]

WV did you know there is/was a band called Squirrel Nut Zippers, for some reason your last few posts jogged my memory of this. ;D 

[WV Sawmiller]

   I readily confess - I did not know that. :D

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know the San/Bushmen of Namibia use Ostrich eggs as canteens? They chip a small hole in the end of the egg and extract the egg itself then they clean and save the empty egg shell as a container. They make a sort of basket or net using twine made from bark, vines or other local fiber to hold the egg and make a sort of strap to go across their shoulder as a carrier. They make a plug of come local wood to keep the water from spilling or splashing out. I'd guess an ostrich egg shell canteen would hold nearly a quart of water.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Thanks to Beenthere I now know that a flock of wild turkeys is also called a "Rafter".

    Did you know a young gobbler is called a Jake? I'd heard that but read today that a young hen is called a Jennie. Never heard that term - maybe because nobody would admit to killing a hen.

[Ljohnsaw]

Did you know that a flock of crows is called a murder? 
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What do you call a pair of crows?
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An attempted murder! ;)

[WV Sawmiller]

   And a group of owls is called a Wisdom, a parliament, a hooting or a stare.

[WV Sawmiller]

   BTW - I had heard the term "A raft of something" to mean a lot. I wonder if that term came a Rafter.

  I also wonder where the term rafter came for a flock of turkeys. Maybe a flock lit on the rafters of a barn some farmer was building?

  I wonder if anything beside quail group together in coveys?

[KEC]

People often refer to a group of waterfowl on the water as "a raft of ducks" or geese, etc. Did you know that in the winter, Long-eared Owls and Short-eared owls gather in flocks? The Short-eareds hunt in flocks over grassy fields for voles. The Long-eareds also hunt for voles, but they spread out to hunt. The Long-eareds roost during the day in dense stands of conifers, sometimes in large numbers in a single roost. In Kikinda, Serbia, right in town is the largest known roost of Long-eared Owls. One year, that single flock of birds roosting together numbered over 700! My former FIL told once of seeing 12 in a pine stand behind his house. I was skeptical when he told me until I learned that they roost in flocks.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know the San/Bushmen of Namibia make jewelry out of ostrich eggs? They break the eggs with a stick or mallet of some type then take the small pieces and nip the corners off with a nail clipper then drill a small hole in the middle with a hand awl and string the pieces into necklaces and bracelets and such. They alter the color in some pieces to a dark brown by heating them in a frying pan. I did not know egg shells turned color when heated but the ostrich egg shells did.

[Dan W]

Here in the UP, a few partridges together is called a covey.  A few in hand is called a brace.Haven't seen a covey in recent years.  Don't know why.  Sharp tail grouse used to be in flocks of a dozen or more.  Have disappeared maybe thirty years ago.  Maybe because of habitat and no more small family farms.  Same with the prairie chicken.

[ellmoe]

Going back to elevated hunting stands, I have determined to make one out of the old sawver's box from a now scrapped Frick Timber Tiger mill I had. It is the perfect size, metal body, with a solid roof, window openings on the sides and a door in the back. I'll have to replace the windows with some kind of sliders, but that should be all. I'll also need a machine to lift it in the air. I do believe it will be the only mill cab converted to such duty.

[WV Sawmiller]

Dan W,

  I had read the term brace but thought that was a pair. Can it be more than 2?