Squirrels are small sized rodents, living in trees, on the ground, near human premises and occasionally even in the human homes. The place for the nest is usually well hidden and it can be only detected by the noise and squealing coming from somewhere inside. As these pesky little Durham creatures can cause you some damage and are a bit of a nuisance, they need to be subjected to a pest control. The most humane possibility, however, needs to be chosen.



Squirrels and their food preparations
Squirrels are omnivores, but the major part of their diet represent nuts, seeds, berries, leaves and in springtime bulbs. They start planning ahead for colder months in order to survive and bury their food in the ground. All through the year they are making storages of food to various locations with the intention to return and dig out nuts and seeds when energy level boosting is going to be needed. Durham squirrels mark all those storages and know precisely where their food has been stored. As they are extremely intelligent, some of the squirrels even dig bogus holes with nothing inside them, just to deceive potential thieves that could try to steal their food. In such manner, they trick other animals to think there is actually food buried in the ground. Any possible observers will most likely try to look food on theses fake site while the real an actual food sites are going to be safely hidden elsewhere. Squirrels and food storage
While storing their food for the winter, North Carolina squirrels know exactly where those storages are. They are not just using some special ˝X˝ marks and smell, accordingly to recent studies, it has been unrevealed, and that memory does play a bigger role in this food retrieval process as well.

Different method of detecting and retrieving the food
Squirrels use different methods of food storage that may vary from species to species. However, the main method is larder-hoarding the food for more challenging times. Midden is located on its territory in a tree cavity, under some leaves, dug safely in the ground or even hid in the branches; the food can be stored for months or just a few hours. Squirrels often come back to their sites and re-burry the food with the intention to examine, whether the food is still eatable. The Durham animals eat and store food in several hiding sites and, coming back later to finish their meal. By scattering half-eaten nuts all around while that is how the squirrels confuse other animals in order not to find its real reserves of food.

When retrieving the food, Durham squirrels use the following options that are at their disposal:
• By smell (recovering through scent-the least reliable)
• By spatial memory (leading them to their own caches in the vicinity of a certain landmark)
As these little creatures are very intelligent species they really have no problem what so ever in recovering their food.

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