Project Squirrel
| Goal |
Help scientists better understand tree squirrel ecology.
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|---|---|
| Task |
Count squirrels anytime, anywhere, report findings online.
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| Description |
Project Squirrel is calling all citizen scientists of all ages to count the number of squirrels in their neighborhoods and report their findings. The goal is to understand tree squirrel ecology. Some neighborhoods may have grey (and “black” squirrels, which are almost always grey squirrels!), fox, and red squirrels while a nearby town only has one species. In many places, it seems one species or another is becoming more common. Learn how to identify these three tree squirrels then report your observations about their presence or absence and some of the ecological conditions of your neighborhood. Read moreAnyone can participate in Project Squirrel. No matter where you live, city or suburb, from the Midwest to the East Coast, Canada to Mexico, the U.K. to Italy, if tree squirrels live in your neighborhood, you are encouraged to become a squirrel monitor. The scientists at Project Squirrel will also use this project to understand the effect that participation in citizen science has on participants and data quality. By contributing to Project Squirrel and documenting your experience, you can provide valuable information that will eventually be used to learn how valuable citizen scientists are to the advancement of scientific knowledge as a whole. |
| How to get started |
Once on the SciStarter-hosted form, fill it and click “Submit”. |
| Social Media | |
| Total expense | $0.00 |
| Ideal Age Group | Families, Middle school (11 - 13 years), Adults, Seniors, High school (14 - 17 years), Elementary school (6 - 10 years) |
| Spend the time | Outdoors |
| Type of Activity | At school, On a walk, run, At home, On a hike |
| Topics | Nature & Outdoors, Ecology & Environment, Biology, Animals |
| Tags | top2022, internal_girl_scouts, girl scouts, top viewed 2021, summer reading 2021, urban ecology, trees, top 22 in 2022, squirrel, urban wildlife |
| Website | Project Squirrel |
| Project Entry Updated | Wed Jan 21 22:32:02 2026 +0000 |
Reviews (641)
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Doreen L 12/03/2025
Great and fun project! Just one suggestion: This website is not very easy to use. It would usually break down after I posted two photos using the same webpage, so when I had a lot of records to post I had to open up tons of webpages, and switch to new ones often. If someone could fix this problem it would be great! :)
And, there are some photos that I uploaded that weren’t able to be viewed on the map. Seems like a problem on my side, but I don’t know if you can see them all on your side.
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miller 10/13/2025
The diversity of squirrels in my area shows how adaptable they are to suburban environments. Each species takes advantage of different food sources and trees, helping to maintain the local ecosystem by spreading seeds and supporting forest growth.
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joe26012 09/16/2025
i saw 2 brown squirrels climb up a black tree trunk with pine cones in a nearby park with lots of lakes
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t 09/12/2025
oklkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
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EvanJulsen 08/30/2025
At first glance, counting squirrels might seem like an odd hobby. After all, squirrels are fast, unpredictable, and occasionally look like they’re plotting a coup against humanity. But spend a morning in a park with a notebook and a thermos of coffee, and you’ll discover that counting squirrels is equal parts calming, challenging, and unexpectedly entertaining.
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Joejordan 08/30/2025
I really enjoyed participating in Project Squirrel! It was easy to get started, just grab my phone, step outside, and start observing squirrels in my neighborhood. I learned to identify different species like grey, black, red, and fox squirrels, which made the activity both fun and educational. Project Squirrel is a simple, engaging way to connect with nature, learn about ecology, and participate in citizen science. I would definitely recommend it to anyone, students, families, or even seniors, who wants a quick, educational outdoor activity.
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user 101 08/28/2025
Squirrels are fascinating creatures, known for their nimble agility and playful antics. With their bushy tails and bright, curious eyes, they can often be seen scurrying through trees, expertly leaping from branch to branch as they search for acorns and nuts. Their lively personalities and clever problem-solving skills make them captivating animals to watch in nature.
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Liam 08/07/2025
Project Squirrel is calling all citizen scientists of all ages to count the number of squirrels in their neighborhoods and report their findings. The goal is to understand tree squirrel ecology
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zarek Vonn 07/16/2025
You’ve likely gained knowledge about different career options, professional communication, and workplace skills. This helps you feel more confident, informed, and prepared to make decisions about your future.
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Corey 07/12/2025
Project Squirrel is a fun and accessible citizen science initiative that invites people of all ages to observe and report the number and types of squirrels in their neighborhoods. Whether you live in a bustling city or a quiet suburb, you can participate by learning to identify common tree squirrels—gray, fox, and red—and sharing your sightings along with details about local ecological conditions.
What makes Project Squirrel stand out is its dual mission: not only does it aim to understand tree squirrel ecology and how different species are distributed, but it also explores how citizen science participation affects both data quality and public engagement in science. This makes it a great learning opportunity for individuals, families, classrooms, and community groups alike.
Easy to join and scientifically meaningful, Project Squirrel is a perfect example of how everyday observations can contribute to real-world research.
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Robsci 06/22/2025
Great educational project for all ages! I participated in Project Squirrel and found it incredibly engaging and informative. The project makes citizen science accessible to everyone - you just need to observe squirrels in your neighborhood and report your findings online. It’s fascinating to learn about different squirrel species (gray, fox, and red) and their behaviors while contributing to real scientific research. The three-minute time commitment makes it easy to fit into any schedule. Perfect for families, students, or anyone interested in wildlife. Highly recommend this fun way to support scientific understanding of urban ecology!
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samsonbrown146 05/27/2025
Squirrels are fascinating creatures, known for their nimble agility and playful antics. With their bushy tails and bright, curious eyes, they can often be seen scurrying through trees, expertly leaping from branch to branch as they search for acorns and nuts.
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desi4987 05/18/2025
Squirrels are fascinating creatures, known for their nimble agility and playful antics. With their bushy tails and bright, curious eyes, they can often be seen scurrying through trees, expertly leaping from branch to branch as they search for acorns and nuts. Their lively personalities and clever problem-solving skills make them captivating animals to watch in nature.
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Ashton 05/09/2025
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kamau 05/08/2025
n my neighborhood, I was able to identify the following three types of tree squirrels:
a. Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)
Appearance: Medium-sized with gray fur, white belly, and a large bushy tail.
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ruth 05/05/2025
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something 05/03/2025
Title: Tree Squirrel Identification and Neighborhood Ecology Report
- Tree Squirrel Identification
In my neighborhood, I was able to identify the following three types of tree squirrels:
a. Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)
Appearance: Medium-sized with gray fur, white belly, and a large bushy tail.
Behavior: Very active during the day, commonly seen foraging on the ground or jumping between trees.
Habitat Preference: Likes wooded areas, especially with oak or maple trees. Common in urban and suburban parks.
b. Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger)
Appearance: Largest tree squirrel in North America, with rusty orange fur on the belly and a more reddish-gray back.
Behavior: Moves more slowly than gray squirrels, often seen climbing larger trees.
Habitat Preference: Prefers open woodlands and larger trees. Less common in highly urbanized areas.
c. Red Squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus)
Appearance: Small, reddish-brown fur with a white belly and a shorter, less bushy tail compared to gray squirrels.
Behavior: Very territorial, often seen chasing other squirrels away from their food caches.
Habitat Preference: More common in coniferous or mixed forests, but found in some residential areas with pines.
- Observations in My Neighborhood
Over the past week, I observed tree squirrels in my local park and backyard. Eastern Gray Squirrels were the most abundant and were active throughout the day. I saw them digging to bury acorns and climbing fences and power lines. Fox Squirrels were observed only twice, usually in quieter, tree-dense corners of the park. Red Squirrels were not as common but were seen in a pine-lined part of the neighborhood, often vocalizing with rapid “chattering” sounds.
- Ecological Conditions of My Neighborhood
Tree Cover: Moderate to dense tree cover with a mix of deciduous trees (oak, maple, elm) and some evergreens (pine).
Urban Setting: Suburban area with lots of gardens, yards, and nearby wooded parks.
Food Availability: Plentiful due to natural nuts, bird feeders, and occasional compost or trash access.
Predators: Some hawks and domestic cats pose occasional threats to squirrels.
Climate: Temperate, with warm summers and cold, snowy winters—squirrels here show seasonal behaviors such as fattening up in the fall.
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Carol 08/04/2024
We have white squirrels in our yard. They really stand out and are fascinating to watch.
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Ollie 07/26/2024
I just did this. It was refreshing to open my eyes up (metaphorically and physically) and actually realize how many squirrels there truly are!
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daniellagill 05/12/2024
I found a squirrel eating at a car park near Lowe’s store. The squirrel was picking pieces of food on the car park and as I approach its direction it ran to a tree. As I kept looking at the squirrel, it ran back to the car park. It was interesting as I saw squirrel keep picking pieces of food at the car park.
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Jenaya 05/08/2024
I can help scientists by getting information or data to help them find more out about the squirrel and tell them things about the habitat of it and find more out about it
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Williams James 04/21/2024
Project Squirrel is calling all citizen scientists of all ages to count the number of squirrels in their neighborhoods and report their findings. The goal is to understand tree squirrel ecology. Some neighborhoods may have grey (and “black” squirrels, which are almost always grey squirrels!), fox, and red squirrels while a nearby town only has one species. In many places, it seems one species or another is becoming more common. Learn how to identify these three tree squirrels then report your observations about their presence or absence and some of the ecological conditions of your neighborhood.
Anyone can participate in Project Squirrel. No matter where you live, city or suburb, from the Midwest to the East Coast, Canada to Mexico, the U.K. to Italy, if tree squirrels live in your neighborhood, you are encouraged to become a squirrel monitor.
The scientists at Project Squirrel will also use this project to understand the effect that participation in citizen science has on participants and data quality. By contributing to Project Squirrel and documenting your experience, you can provide valuable information that will eventually be used to learn how valuable citizen scientists are to the advancement of scientific knowledge as a whole.
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Foreign 04/19/2024
I really enjoyed the project and I will like more things like this to be done to other animals thank you
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StormScientist12 04/12/2024This was a fun project I loved the worksheet! Unfortunately, there are no squirrels in my area but, I will be going out to Red Rock sometime this month, I hope to see some squirrels! I’ll report back then.
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Angela 02/16/2024
My squirrels have disappeared. I have seen one squirrel since January 26. I wonder what is going on.
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Andrew Noiles 02/02/2024We have so many where I live that they are damaging our home, shed and landscape structures. We have to cull on a regular basis which is to bad because I love the little creatures. The fox likes the idea.
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Anneke9 01/20/2024
I work on a university campus and squirrels are everywhere. If you sit down outside to eat, you will soon have a new pal by your side waiting for you to share.
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LeeLoo 12/07/2023Ms cookie(squirrel in our backyard) is so big she can’t fit through the chain length fence and will come in our house for food when we leave our backdoor open.
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rylrunner 11/28/2023
i had a squirrel eat every bit of my my pie i forgot outside and there wasn’t a crum left
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ChiefZzzClouds 08/18/2023When I was little one use to follow me he lived in a tree around the corner he liked rocks for some reason maybe his name was rock
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Athen 03/31/2023
I saw a squirrel with a Starbucks bag in its mouth. I wish I had my camera ready. They always run away when I am near them. It’s like when I see a rabbit, I barely move and they are gone in less than a second.
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FOXX 03/11/2023It’s been snowing like crazy this winter and so I haven’t been getting into the deep woods as much as I like. But this morning I saw a squirrel bound across wood shed in the mix of tall pine trees of the sierra nevada where I live. The big jeffrey pine cones are a favorite for the squirrel snacks.
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Jana 03/07/2023
I saw a squirrel on the road but it ran away. It was scared. We were careful when daddy was driving.
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jsalva14 03/05/2023
I spotted a squirrel in DC today and it was nice giving it food and trying to take a picture because they are creatures that are very nervous around interacting with humans so when I gave the squirrel the food it ran away at first and then it came back a couple of minutes later and then it started eating the nuts that I put down and then I was a able to take a clear photo zoomed in on my phone truly a sight to see.
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Citizen Sclence harper 01/29/2023
I spotted 2 grey sqirrels in Elysian park in LosAngeles.I think I was more afide of the squirrls then they where of me because it came really close to my phone almost like it know i was about to taking a picture them.
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Sharika mack 12/02/2022
I live in Shelton and we have a lot of black squirrels. They don’t hang in groups. You normally see them by themselves.
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Tabby 06/24/2022
I spotted 3 grey squirrels near trees in the park during my walk around the neighbourhood of Skyviewranch. The Eastern grey squirrels here are massive in size in comparison to the ones I have seen in Ontario Canada, but also the sizes of other animals such as rabbits are also seeming larger than the ones in Ontario.
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Meg_Jacobs 05/06/2022
Saw a red squirrel today. I haven’t noticed this one before in the area so it might be a new addition. It is in a pretty crowed place with heavy foot traffic and not connected to a dense forested area at all, maybe this is a young squirrel that has dispersed?
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Cassie 04/28/2022
I’ve recently bought a squirrel picnic table to feed our neighborhood squirrels. They didn’t seem to touch the corn for weeks, but today I spotted one, and my daughter will be so happy to see the video when she gets home. We’ve always had many squirrels at our house as they have chewed a hole in our awning and continue to make a nest in there over the years. We have named one Bob, as they are the only one we can tell apart from the rest(it only has a half of a tail). Bob has been around here for over a year now. We are not sure what happened to his tail, but we enjoyed watching him eat the acorns and chase the other squirrels around in the yard. Sometimes he ventures off across the street to where my neighbors have ducks. You can watch him climb their fence, hop down, grab some feed, and run home. It’s been a joy to watch.
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Lynn 04/06/2022
We have seen three grey squirrels and two red squirrels in our bird feeder the last couple months in Milbridge, Maine.
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jcdelap 03/23/2022
Unfortunately, mapbox would not work at all on the webpage when displayed in Firefox. Worked fine in Chrome. I hate Chrome.
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Alok 12/24/2021
It’s not a big task for me because just I cameout from my house and went my garden side field there just I found one species of gray squirrel then It was help me for doing this project. It’s not big task as generally they are found here for food from trees side the garden and then found as a squirrel easy as we know .
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the sam 12/11/2021
I went on the short walk outside of my house to downtown Concord to try and see how many squirrels I could spot. I didn’t expect to see too many since the walk itself is only about 1 mile both ways and it’s the colder season where I live, but I managed to spot one and what I thought was a second. The first I saw was grey and was hiding in a mess of trees down the road. The second one I assumed was a squirrel because I saw a small animal dart out of sight and I couldn’t quite tell what it was. We do have cats and lots of birds around here though. I can’t imagine there being any predators nearby besides the vultures that live around here and the dogs that people own in the neighborhood.
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(119585) 12/05/2021
Haydee and Daddy completed two observations within the military housing community. They only found Gray Squirrels happily gathering food the trees and ground. No predators found with exception of a few dogs being walked.
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Andres0290 12/03/2021
On Thursday, I saw three gray squirrels and all look like adult. The three squirrel were seeking food and digging in the rocks. The squirrel through action showed territorial behavior with the food as well as when coming back together they showed signs of protection with one another when they were around a lot of people from the community.
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Estefani 11/15/2021
i see a squirrel eating nuts on our window. there really interesting . they come and go but they come two squirrel to come eating the nuts.
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valentina 08/29/2021
I have a large number of gray squirrels in my area. They are very active and curious. They get close to the house climbing brick walls to reach the birds’ feeders. They eat flowers from my summer pots, they like pansies and hibiscus. They entered and settled in an owl box and mated there last spring. Since I have a variety of birds, from cardinals, titmouse, bluebirds, woodpeckers, songbirds, wrens, chickadees, white-throated sparrows, I believe this area had many birds feeders in private yards and therefore many sources of food for squirrels too.
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unicorn4510 05/15/2021
My neighborhood park has all kinds of trees and it was very interesting to observe the gray squirrels at the park. We even saw one of the red tailed hawks that visit our park in search of birds to eat.
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(69018) 05/06/2021
It is really fantastic that there are lots of trees in my neighborhood with a lot of squirrels. I observe many squirrels digging hole in my yard and burying nut in my yard and digging the nuts up for food during winter. The squirrels are very curious when my wife and I plant vegetables and flowers in the spring time. The squirrels often dig up what we have planted to see for themselves what we are planting. Sometimes these little darlings leave nuts on our porch. Our grand children love to come for a visit to see our squirrels hopping about and playing in the yard.
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gstroop83126 04/13/2021
Great for Girl Scout Daisies! They loved being squirrel spies and capturing observations in their notebooks. Which our troop leader then recorded as a group summary and reported to the project.
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Don 01/01/2021
We just joined this project, mostly because we have so many squirrels in our yard and coming to our bird feeders. In our area, we have grey squirrels and the black variant in about equal numbers. Would you like to know how many of each we see? We are also seeing an occasional fox squirrel for the first time ever here at our cottage. It seems like their range is extending northward. Likely a result of warmer temperatures we are experiencing. We will keep close watch and see if their numbers increase.
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Troop 112 12/31/2020
My Girl Scout troop wanted to do the Citizen Scientist Journey but since we’re in the middle of COVID I had to figure out how to do it. Our Internet connections are too slow to allow to allow me to stream a video for their Google Meet, so I had to choose a project they could do independently. This turned out to be the perfect one! They were easily able to complete the squirrel observations and submit their data during their lunch break, and they had a lot of fun with it.
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Coleen Walker 12/27/2020
We have a backyard corn feeder. We love watching squirrels eat the corn and play in our backyard. We have as many as eight squirrels, but normally see 2-4 during the day.
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ekuwornu 07/14/2020
I found a squirrel eating at a car park near Lowe’s store. The squirrel was picking pieces of food on the car park and as I approach its direction it ran to a tree. As I kept looking at the squirrel, it ran back to the car park. It was interesting as I saw squirrel keep picking pieces of food at the car park.
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Interbrosting 04/07/2020
I found a squirrel eating nuts on our table in my backyard. There really interesting. They come and go. But I think it’s the same squirrel eating the food.
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Cottontop 02/27/2019Our Girl Scout troop really enjoyed watching for squirrels in their own back yards and in the local park where we went as a group! We learned a lot about our local squirrels and learned to keep an eye when we're out walking, because you never know what types of animals you will see.
