Rock Squirrels

This page has photos of Rock Squirrels that live around my home on Coldwater Farm in central Arizona. I will add photos and perhaps a few anecdotes on an irregular schedule.

We call our 20 acres Coldwater Farm and we keep it solely for wildlife. Lots of mammals, but only one squirrel species here. A Cliff Chipmunk stopped by three years ago, but otherwise, all our squirrels are Rock Squirrels (Spermophilus variegatus). There are no rocks around the Farm, so the squirrels burrow in the banks of old lacustrine deposits. They do a bit of tree climbing. They climb to the dipping tips of willows for spring buds, and they climb to the tops of the pear trees for fruit (the last photo in the set below). I have seen a youngster resting seven meters up an old willow tree.