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(water trickling) (playful music)

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Some people love squirrels.

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

Others see them as pests and glorified rats.

But we can all agree (squirrel chittering)

(dramatic music)

that the characterful rodents are speedy,

quirky, exceptional climbers,

and go crazy for nuts.

They've conquered most of the globe,

from icy tundra, to the hottest deserts,

and have plenty of life skills to see them through,

from stashing nuts, to fighting snakes.

Whatever your view, squirrels are heroic and successful.

Learn more about them

and you, too, will go nuts for squirrels.

Even in our most urban settings, all of us know squirrels.

While most households try to exclude, remove,

or exterminate rats and mice,

squirrels seem to get away with sharing our patch.

(playful music)

In fact, many of us welcome the rascals.

We even feed them.

(girl giggling)

Thanks to their charisma,

they seem to have mastered the art of urban living.

But, of course, they belong to the wild

and range far and wide.

(birds chirping)

There are close to 300 kinds of squirrels roaming the world.

Dashing their way through woodland, rainforests,

mountains, deserts.

Indeed, they are everywhere, apart from the extreme poles.

In fact, the sky's the limit, almost.

(enchanting music)

All squirrels have a head for heights,

but none more so than flying squirrels.

Though technically the caped crusaders

should be called gliding squirrels.

They spread huge flaps of skin

between their wrists and ankles,

like the skydivers that mimic them.

(dramatic music)

The large surface area slows their descent,

allowing them to transit half the length

of a football field.

Through the cold winter months,

the gliders didn't hibernate,

they huddled, using each other's bodies to stay warm.

They slowed their metabolisms to save energy

and hunkered down in their modest homes.

(birds chirping)

But now, spring's here, and the party's over.

Now, it's every squirrel for himself.

(jaunty music)

Males can smell the sweet aroma of receptive females

and move into their territory

to try and put their moves on a mate.

The girls tend to give them the run around,

but eventually will pick the father of their child.

(owl hoots)

Spring is a busy time for squirrel-kind,

but for Arctic ground squirrels, sex-related stress is high.

Spring comes late.

(wind howling)

This old warrior has been asleep,

well, hibernating, for an incredible seven months.

Most mammals can't cope with freezing temperatures,

but the Arctic squirrel has true grit.

As the world around him solidified,

his body dropped below the freezing point of water.

He shuts down to the point

that neural pathways in his brain collapsed.

He should be brain dead.

But as sun slowly warms the air in his burrow,

it's like someone switches on the lights.

(gentle music)

He twitches back to life.

His brain regenerates rapidly in just a few hours

to a better state than it was before the winter.

This superhero self-healing is exciting scientists

as the brainy squirrel might teach us how

to reverse the effects of Alzheimer's

and other brain damage.

(jaunty music)

But despite the brain box,

he has only one thing on his mind, sex.

Summers are short

and squirrel mothers are going to be busy

trying to raise their young to motherhood before winter.

So they give the boys only three days of receptivity,

just three days in which all of the mating

must take place for the entire year.

Of course, no males want to miss out.

With high stakes and a ticking clock,

they search frantically for female burrows.

(jaunty music continues)

And when they find willing females,

it's all out war.

(squirrels clucking)

For all squirrels,

the mating season is something of an Olympic sport.

(birds chirping)

European red squirrels runs circles around each other.

(playful music)

Savvy females want to make sure they pick good mates.

They will be single moms.

The dads won't stick around,

so they like to ensure

that the males' one small contribution

is at least good-quality genes.

The chase is a way to make sure the suitor

is fit and healthy.

(playful music)

It's a season where the squirrels are a bit distracted,

the commotion drawing attention,

but the hormones distract them from the threats.

One urbanite allowed lust

to get in the way of his street smart.

But now his body will feed a hungry family downtown.

(gentle music)

After the chaos of mating dies down,

brooding mums start nest building.

well, actually, most tree living squirrels

are nest builders.

Their constructions are called drays.

They have summer houses

and then more heavily-insulated winter retreats,

places where they can sleep and hide from the weather.

But the pregnant females take special care

to make sure their drays

are secure highlights for their young.

And it's because of these constructions,

that it is very rare to see really young baby squirrels.

When they're born, they're tiny, blind, and naked,

and mother keeps them indoors.

Only after a month or two do the little ones appear

in the outside world.

(birds chirping)

These young rock squirrels in California

are gradually learning the ropes,

but the California dreamers

need to get their acts together.

Their mother is planning a heist

and her little ones will be expected to watch and learn,

(jaunty music)

their first step towards a life of crime.

Nothing drives squirrels nuts like nuts,

and this mum's planning to hit the mother lode.

This is not the world's most generous squirrel feeder.

Rather, it's the hard work of a family of birds.

Acorn woodpeckers devote their lives to gathering acorns,

and then tapping perfectly-sized holes into dead trees

to store their treasure.

The nuts are not preserved for posterity.

It's a food store,

a fail-safe to keep the birds going through winter.

It's hardly surprising that the stash should draw squirrels.

But having worked so hard,

the woodpeckers do not tolerate looters.

The mum has one very small advantage,

her youngsters don't really know what they're doing

and draw some of the firepower away from her advance.

The little ones get to feel the sharp end of the law

while mum grabs the loot.

(woodpecker chirping)

But the woodpeckers make their point,

and it's soon time to go.

(jaunty music)

Young squirrels have a lot to learn,

including knowing how to pick their fights.

(serene music)

One key to safe squirrels is communication.

When they are nervous,

tree squirrels anxiously twitch their tails,

a warning to other squirrels in the area,

(squirrel chirping)

and most use their voices.

Souslik are European ground squirrels.

The young are naive

but know not to roam too far from their burrow.

The squirrels are day-active,

locking themselves into their burrows at night.

By living in groups, they are team players,

always multiple eyes looking for danger.

And when there are youngsters about,

the threats are plentiful,

(suspenseful music)

like hopeful snakes.

The little ones are curious,

(suspenseful music)

but an adult spots the intruder and sounds the alarm.

(squirrel squeaks)

The news is quickly passed between neighbors.

Mum barks. The kids are sent packing.

Next time they see a snake, they'll know to raise the alarm.

Squirrel schooling is more than just avoiding predators,

especially for flying squirrels.

(birds chirping)

This little youngster also needs a head for heights.

To keep up her milk supply, mum needs to feed.

She frequently goes out on a limb.

The little one clings to home, literally,

but he's hungry.

If he wants milk, he needs to tight-rope his way to mom.

(playful music)

His tail will offer balance once he's learned to use it.

But right now, it's a white-knuckle ride.

Clinging on for dear life,

he makes it to his mother and is rewarded.

His arboreal adventure will get easier with practice,

though it might be a while before he tries out his wings.

(owl peeping)

The clumsy climbing draws attention, though.

That's enough excitement for one day.

(hummingbird buzzing)

Other youngsters prefer to keep their feet

firmly on the ground,

like these desert-dwelling

Harris antelope squirrels in Arizona.

Still very young, they are staying close to home,

gingerly nibbling at what they can find.

(jaunty music)

They dabble with some climbing, but not for long.

So far, the childhood memories they are making

are happy ones.

But there is a serpent in their Garden of Eden.

A long-nosed snake,

looking for a suitable guest for breakfast.

A young and inexperienced squirrel, perfect.

But these little ones are never alone.

Squirrel mums are ever alert.

Without hesitation, she tells the kids

to head for their underground bunker.

But it's not enough.

The snake saw them.

The burrow is the perfect size for his body.

There is no hiding now.

The family are sitting ducks in the snake's line of fire.

There is only one thing for it.

(dramatic music)

Squirrels are gutsy and rarely afraid of a fight.

She plays the predator.

(tense music)

Getting too close for comfort to draw its firepower,

she's relying on her speed and agility

to deflect each strike.

She's doing two things,

with every strike, it's being led away from home,

and the cold-blooded reptile is running out of energy.

Eventually it admits defeat,

and mum looks pretty pleased with herself as she skips home.

(jaunty music)

After the showdown, she's hot and bothered

and the desert temperature is rapidly soaring.

(insects buzzing)

Life in the oven requires a knowledge

of temperature control.

She sprawls out in the shade of a cactus.

(dramatic music)

Whether here in the desert of the U.S.

or in the Kalahari in southern Africa,

squirrels plan their day around shade,

dashing out into the sun to quickly gather food,

carrying their tails aloft like parasols

to shade their bodies.

The word squirrel is derived from the Latin

for shadow-tailed for this multipurpose organ.

But even this isn't enough,

so just before the squirrel sizzles,

he nips back to the shade.

Social ground squirrels are unusual,

because here, males form their own little colonies.

A dozen or more room together,

and by day, hang out with small groups of friends.

In most other squirrels, males get grumpy around each other,

but these boys chill,

apart from some of the hormonal younger males.

(playful music)

Boys will be boys.

(squirrels sniffing)

Once they feel they've proved their machismo,

they take a time-out,

trying to copy the veterans in making a day bed.

(playful music)

By pushing off the sun-kissed topsoil,

they can lie on the cooler sand beneath.

Just a power nap before the need to feed

drives them again into the sun.

There are many kinds of ground squirrels,

and while they, too, are nuts about nuts,

they are especially fond of grass.

(jaunty music)

The Uinta ground squirrel

demonstrates some incredible efficiency in mastication.

They are the ultimate lawnmowers.

And what they don't eat,

they take home in their cheek pouches to line their nests.

Ground squirrels include the biggest squirrels of all,

the marmots,

(folksy music)

15 different kinds, some as big as a badger.

Ask most people what they imagine

when they think squirrel,

and they'd say super fast and energetic.

That is not marmots.

They live in the mountains, tough outlanders

who do as little as possible to save energy.

They hibernate through winter,

which means, already, 60% of their lives

is spent in that deep slumber,

and the rest of the time, they don't really do a lot.

More social than their tree climbing cousins,

they live in groups of a dozen or more.

Males hold territories

and entice several females to hang out with them.

A lot of the colony are females who are born here

and will stick around,

while most young males will leave home

and try to set up gangs of their own.

(playful music)

This litter is too young to worry about adult politics yet,

and can just hang out on the rocks.

With youthful exuberance,

they are a little more active than their parents,

but not too much.

Once they go it alone,

young squirrels have a lot to learn.

(bird squawking)

This handsome young buck

is one of the best looking squirrels in America,

an Abert's squirrel.

The species boasts some fine stripes and fancy ear tufts,

though why some species of squirrel have ear tufts

is a bit of a mystery.

His kind lives on and consumes Ponderosa pine.

His favorite dish, pine cones, are quirkily consumed.

Like all squirrels,

he has dextrous little hands, not only for climbing,

but to manipulate his food.

He turns the cone like a human nibbling corn on the cob

to snip off each segment and reveal the seed beneath.

It's apparently delicious,

so much so that he doesn't notice an observer.

Bobcats, like most members of the cat family,

are serious threats to squirrels,

(suspenseful music)

but squirrels, including Abert's,

have a number of lifestyle choices

that make them less at risk.

They often hang out in places

where the trees have overlapping canopies

so they can run from one to the other

without ever having to come to the ground.

They try to stay hidden away on windy days,

as the bad weather makes it harder

to listen out for dangers.

And they rest on the tops of branches,

making them hard to spot from below.

These are important life skills,

but the youngster doesn't seem to have mastered them yet.

The bobcat's getting closer.

Cats have retractable claws

to enable them to move in silence.

But when the claws flick forwards,

they allow the cat to climb with lightning speed.

Squirrels can move at 30 kilometers per hour.

It was his speed, not his common sense,

that saved the squirrel.

(gentle music)

But one of those lethal claws struck home.

There is a deep slash in his foot.

Many squirrels don't make it through their first year,

but as long as he keeps the wound clean,

he has a good chance of survival.

And he's learned a lesson.

He won't make the same mistake again.

(birds chirping)

Summer is a time of plenty,

though much of the riches from the trees

will come later, in autumn.

Chipmunks are impatient and get in early.

Pine cones are far from ripe, but plump and sticky.

They are irresistible.

There are 23 species of chipmunks.

They are squirrels,

but different enough to have their own little branch

of the family tree.

Though they feed in the trees with the squirrels,

they don't sleep in them.

They have burrows on the ground,

which they line with bedding.

With smaller, lighter bodies and less bushy tails,

They are the cheetahs of the squirrel world.

(dramatic music)

The little stripy squirrel grabs a bite on the branch,

but plans to drop off the rest.

They must be go-faster stripes.

He almost beats the cone to the ground.

Tearing open each woody segment,

he can collect the nutritious seeds beneath.

Others eye his success with envy.

His little tummy can't eat them all,

but to make sure no one else gets them,

he crams every seed into his cheek pouches,

built-in shopping bags.

(wind rustling)

Pine cones are out of reach for many

on the tops of the trees.

Most belong to the birds like nutcrackers,

crows with powerful beaks.

But it's a feast that red squirrels

are not going to turn down.

For them to enjoy this bounty requires a head for heights.

(gentle music)

By cracking this arboreal lifestyle,

the squirrels almost have this resource to themselves,

though word gets out about the forest bonanza,

and it's not just birds that come for their share.

(playful music)

Even bears will do their best to join the party.

The bulky animals are too heavy for the extremities though,

so the light-footed squirrels get the best seat in the house

with the best view.

(gentle music)

It's the season of harvest, and not just for squirrels.

(tractors rumbling)

The meadows of Europe are cut

so the grasses can be dried and made into animal feed.

But the hill's haircut exposes the souslik colony.

The older squirrels are used to the annual shave,

but the youngsters watch the tractor with fascination.

Like moviegoers, popcorn in their hands,

they watch the show.

They don't realize this picture's a horror.

(suspenseful music)

Birds often follow tractors.

The white storks know the harvest will stir up insects

and other animals that were hiding in the long grass,

including squirrels.

(squirrel squeaks)

A parent voices its concern.

This scene isn't rated child-friendly.

(suspenseful music continues)

Home alone, the youngsters can't resist the urge

to take a peek outside.

But this neighborhood isn't a safe place to play.

Not every show has a happy ending,

but the survivors will learn not to make the same mistakes.

(birds chirping)

(animal bellowing)

(woodpecker pecking)

It's not just young squirrels

that need to learn the rules of cat and mouse,

it's the predators, too.

(gentle music)

In European forests,

young wild cats will need to get to grips

with squirrely squirrels.

The kits start exploring a little further from home.

They are drawn to the antics of the rascally rodents.

But smart squirrels always have an escape plan.

When we glimpse squirrels, they often look erratic,

but their zigzag dashes are not chaotic,

they are calculated,

making it harder for predators to keep up.

Cats are good climbers, but pursuing a squirrel uphill,

now that's optimistic.

Mortality among young squirrels is very high,

but as the summer progresses,

they are learning to stay safe.

(stream rustling)

But now there is a new challenge, to prepare for winter.

(gentle music)

For once, squirrels don't have to elevate their efforts.

In autumn, the food comes to them.

Chestnuts, pine cones, conkers,

all manner of nuts and seeds are shed by the trees,

their attempt to reproduce

by scattering young, far and wide.

Of course, many will not make it.

They have to face the squirrel army.

Some of the seeds come well armed,

like the spiny cases of chestnuts.

But squirrels have long, dextrous fingers

and chisels for teeth.

Like all rodents,

the front incisors never stop growing.

The upper and lower teeth rub against each other

to wear them down and keep the edges sharp

and fit for purpose, nut punching.

(jaunty music)

That's not all they pierce.

Squirrels, like other rodents,

famously make themselves unpopular

when they get into buildings,

because they chew through our electrical wires with ease,

chewing through the insulation

and causing electrical shorts.

In North America, they take down power grids

with their nipping and can cause 1500 power cuts a year.

They have even knocked out the New York stock market

on more than one occasion.

The self-sharpening chisels

can grow an incredible 15 centimeters a year,

though, of course, mostly for nibbling nuts.

Most of this loot will not be consumed on-site, though.

The squirrels will stash as many as they can,

burying them and tucking them into crevices,

hiding them away as a food store

for the coming months of cold.

(birds chirping)

It's a labor-intensive way

of trying to protect their property

known as scatter hoarding,

spreading it out in as many hiding places as possible,

reducing the odds of them all being stolen.

Amazingly, they will remember and retrieve 80%

of the hundreds of caches they make.

There is competition between the rodents

and the odd thieving rogue.

No one wants their nuts to end up in the wrong hands,

so little tips are common.

But squirrels are not the main risk to the rodents' riches.

As they work, the squirrels are constantly monitored,

especially by jays.

(suspenseful music)

The crafty crows are bird-brained.

They are even better than the squirrels

at remembering where each and every nut is buried,

and when the squirrels aren't looking, grab the goodies.

Because the featherweight thieves might make off

with 25% of their stash, the squirrels have wised up,

and know a few dirty tricks themselves.

They are known to go through the motions,

Oscar-worthy performances.

They pretend to bury nuts,

setting false treasure maps

to throw the birds off the scent.

(gentle music)

With the jays distracted, the real treasure is buried.

Though it looks like fun and games,

each and every deposit is an investment

in the squirrel's future, a vital lifeline.

Squirrels must supersize, bulking up with a layer of fat

to keep them warm through winter,

and must stash away enough food.

No wonder they always look so busy.

When the temperatures drop,

many small animals, including a couple of squirrels,

head into hibernation, but most eek it out.

And now squirrels have every reason to look smug.

They can sit back and crack open a snack from their store.

(jaunty music)

As first snows are falling, wildlife is getting hungry.

But this squirrel is well set,

something making the local bird life extremely jealous.

No one wants to be watched while eating.

The squirrel might have over ordered.

He keeps thinking about taking a break from his meal,

but each time he steps back, a Clark's nut hatch,

like an overeager waiter, comes to clear his table.

(jaunty music continues)

He might want that for later.

(gentle music)

Even when the ground is blanketed in snow,

the hardcore rodents are out feeling for the nuts.

Thanks to their sense of smell,

they can locate and dig their way to the stash.

The hard work through the year now supports them,

as well as the jays, with the memory to raid.

Of course, some squirrels had the good sense

to pick squirrel loving-neighbors.

Urbanites among their ranks can massively benefit

from human handouts in winter,

whether meant for them or the birds.

But squirrels don't need us.

They work tirelessly to make sure

they can fend for themselves.

(gentle music)

There will always be a few nuts and seeds

that escape detection,

but this is no lost wealth,

it's investment for a richer future.

Squirrels are super savers.

Whether it's intentional or not,

some of the nuts will germinate, planted in safe hideaways,

the perfect nurseries for them to begin their lives.

For this reason, squirrels are more

than just amazing and mischievous rodents.

They are landscape gardeners,

vital to the future health of forests.

They may not realize their ecological significance.

They are too busy with their obsession,

going nuts about nuts.

(playful music)