Look closerMammals
Red squirrel cone piles under the pines
When: All year
Red squirrels living in Massachusetts pine, spruce, and hemlock stands strip cones scale by scale at a favorite stump, log or branch, and the discarded scales pile up in one spot over time, sometimes up to two feet high after years of use.
Why this time of year
The piles are visible all year, and from late summer through autumn red squirrels are busiest harvesting and storing the new cone crop.
How to notice it
- Walk into a stand of white pine, spruce, or hemlock and check the base of a stump, log, or low horizontal branch.
- Look for a heap of chewed cone scales and cone pieces built up in one spot.
- Listen for a red squirrel's chattering scold nearby.
Try this with kids: Find the squirrel's messy lunch table under the pines. How many chewed-up cone pieces can you count?
midden: a pile of feeding debris built up in one spot from repeated visits
Sources
- massaudubon.orgMass Audubon: red squirrels live in Massachusetts outside the islands, favor spruce and pine forests, and feeding piles (middens) build up to two feet high over years at the same spot.
- tobweb.town.barnstable.ma.usMassWildlife 'Living With Wildlife: Gray and Red Squirrels in Massachusetts' fact sheet (town mirror): red squirrels in conifer forest; Northeast squirrels typically leave piles of cone fragments directly under feeding perches rather than heaped middens as in the west; gray squirrels favor oak-hickory and cache nuts.
- extension.unh.eduUNH Extension: red squirrels eat spruce, fir, hemlock and white pine cones; they use the same spot over and over, resulting in a large pile of cone pieces called a midden.
- animaldiversity.orgAnimal Diversity Web (University of Michigan): harvesting and caching occur in late summer through autumn; eastern populations mostly scatter-hoard rather than use one large midden.
Checked against these sources on September 28, 2026.