Intro from treeless squirrel watcher

[Sqrlgrl]

Hello all; thanks for letting me join this group! I love feeding and watching my backyard squirrels, but lost much of their nearby habitat with last year’s storms. I had several trees in my backyard up until a little over a year ago, but now pretty much barren as they were blown down. Still plenty of trees in the neighborhood so the squirrels do still stop by to eat. I’m trying to figure out a way to erect some type of structure that will mimic the trees so they can nest in my yard and am enjoying scrolling through all of your posts on habitat!

[CritterMom]

I think that given that they HAVE trees available nearby, anything you could build would not be used. However that is no reason to put your tools away quite yet!

I have woods that backs up to my property and live in an old neighborhood, so all of the trees there are huge. I have some monster trees on my property. I maintain what I call The Squirrel Cafe which is just outside my kitchen window, and every squirrel in the area comes there! I thought that they would populate all of my trees but it seems they don't want to live that close to the Cafe - way too much activity! But I have 10 times the squirrel activity that all of the yards that have them living there, TRUST ME!

So while having them live directly in your yard might not be feasible, if you provide them with regularly available food, they will come. Providing it with a roof or cover is nice and placing it where it is reasonably near cover - even hedges and border plantings so they don't have to cross wide open spaces to get there.