10-10-2026 6:44pm

The Eastern Chipmunk

Beth Callahan Editor

Nature Close to Home and Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist Dave Woehr shares monthly naturalist stories.

WARREN COUNTY, OH -- I’m trying to decide. Is the chipmunk a desirable form of backyard
wildlife or is it a pest? It’s a beautifully colored little rodent
that’s active from spring until winter begins. In the coldest
months, it hibernates in its underground den where it stashed a lot of
nuts and seeds to snack on until spring arrives.

There
certainly are a lot of these little rascals in my yard right now. I
think there must have been a couple of new litters making the scene
simultaneously. Their appearance seems to coincide with the
disappearance of several stray cats that were roaming the
neighborhood earlier in the year. I have seen at least three
chipmunks at a time. Some are almost twice as big as others, so I’m
concluding, I’m seeing both adults and youngsters.

They
scamper about darting from under the cover of brushy vegetation to
right out in the open. Sometimes they sit on my concrete patio long
enough for me to grab the camera and get a picture. At least one of
them lives in my garden hose box! Others dig into the soil adjacent
to the concrete edges of my sidewalks, patio, and driveway. Beneath
those concrete slabs are the dens where they will spend the winter
with their stash of food. They do almost as much digging as those
pesky moles that tunnel through my lawn!

The
chipmunks have discovered that there is a bountiful supply of their
preferred food in my yard. They are devouring the ripening seeds from
the heads of the sunflowers I planted late last spring. Some of those
sunflower heads are atop eight-foot stalks that the chipmunks have no
trouble climbing. They also have made themselves welcome at the
hanging feeders I’ve filled with expensive store-bought seed.

When a
chipmunk is gathering seed to stash in his winter den he collects a
lot at one time and stores it in cheek pouches making him look like
he’s working on a couple big chaws of tobacco! Cute, but not
exactly who I intended to attract to my backyard wildlife food
pantry.