Rabbits and Squirrels on our Lawn

     We have at least three cottontail rabbits and five gray squirrels on our lawn in New Holland, Pennsylvania for good reasons.  Both these adaptable species are here the year around because of ample food and shelter.

     Cottontails are common in overgrown fields and the thickets of hedgerows between fields, woodland edges and suburban areas.  Gray squirrels are abundant in deciduous woods, and older parks and suburbs with their many large trees.  These species are game animals during legal hunting seasons, but they are also interesting to watch wherever they are, including in out yard.

     These small mammals blend into their respective backgrounds which makes them tough to see to be safer from predation.  Cottontails are brown, which camouflages them among grasses and the soil.  But gray squirrels are gray, which camouflages them on the bark of the deciduous tree trunks and limbs they climb on.

     The rabbits eat grass and other green vegetation on the ground.  The squirrels consume nuts, seeds, berries and tree buds.  Obviously, there is little competition between these species for food, which allows them to live in harmony wherever their niches overlap, such as on our lawn, as elsewhere.

     Cottontails find shelter on the ground, including in abandoned wood chuck holes, thick patches of tall weeds and grasses, brush piles and so on.  In our yard, they live by day under our deck and tool shed, but are active from dusk through each night the year around.

     The squirrels, however, live in tree hollows high above the ground, or in bulky nests of dead leaves they make themselves among several twigs, if they can't find cavities that aren't being used by another animal.  There is no competition between cottontails and squirrels for homes.

     Both the rabbits and squirrels come to bird feeders on our lawn.  Like birds, these mammals take advantage of easy food sources, the cottontails on the ground and the squirrels on the feeders.  Gray squirrels use their intelligence to get on many bird feeders that people think are squirrel proof.

     In spite of the camouflaged fur on both these adaptable, common mammals and their keen senses of smell, sight and sound, they need to be alert for predators at all times, including on our lawn.  Cooper's hawks, red-tailed hawks and house cats roam our yard by day, and are big and strong enough to kill cottontails and gray squirrels.  And great horned owls and house cats are around at dusk, dawn and through the night.  The owls and squirrels overlap each other at dawn and dusk.

     Though cottontails and gray squirrels are adaptable and commonplace, they are still interesting little animals.  They each demonstrate camouflage and play a role in a food chain of who eats whom.  And they take advantage of whatever food and shelter is available in their respective niches.