In a nutshell, chipmunks are quite cheeky.

These ravenous and rascally rodents stockpile more than their fair share of foodstuff by stuffing their faces. Chipmunks have cheek pouches, which can be filled with enormous amounts of food. 

In one study, a chipmunk was observed filling its pouch with six-dozen black sunflower seeds at one time. Over the course of a day, a single animal can gather 165 acorns! They are the ultimate hoarders, known for their colossal collection of chow concealed in buried burrows that can be 20 feet in length and go three feet down.

Chipmunks have both devotees and disparagers. The latter complain of the damage that they create in the garden and yard by digging their burrows. Poet Ogden Nash was known to disagree, writing rapturously of these rodents: 

“My friends all know that I am shy,
But the chipmunk is twice as shy as I.
He moves with flickering indecision
Like stripes across the television.
He’s like the shadow of a cloud,
Or Emily Dickinson read aloud.
Yet his ultimate purpose is obvious, very:
To get back to his chipmonastery.”

These ‘chipmonastaries’ are very localized and found irregularly on the Island, though the population of chipmunks seems to be on the rise.  My sources tell me that these mammals were introduced in the late 1950s on Chappy and at Christiantown. There remain, however, no crafty chipmunks, or chipmunks of any sort, on Nantucket. And those burrows aren’t always filled exclusively with nuts. Chipmunks are omnivores and will consume almost anything from soup to, well, you know. Fruit, seeds, mushrooms and insects are just the beginning for these energetic eaters, who can also munch on birds, their eggs, frogs and even small snakes. 

Though in the same family as squirrels, chipmunks’ small size and striped coloring make identification easy. So striking are they that a few chipmunks have become famous. Conservationist and children’s author Thornton Burgess wrote about Peter Rabbit’s friend Striped Chipmunk; Disney animated the duo of Chip ‘n’ Dale; and who doesn’t know Alvin, Simon and Theodore, the famous singing chipmunks?

It was Alvin, who was the mischief-maker, that once complained, “That’s it! I can’t take this anymore. I can’t! I give up! I am sick of struggling for survival, competing with gophers and earthworms and that loser sparrow who always takes my nuts. And I’m especially sick of this stupid, stupid tree!”

Wild chipmunks whine less than those anthropomorphized ones. Chipmunks do vocalize, but only utter three types of complaints. These are categorized as a ‘chip,’ a deeper ‘chuck,’ and a startle call.

Island chipmunks are preparing for their second litter, the first having arrived earlier in the spring. Two litters per year are possible, with tiny, hairless, blind young the size of a large jellybean resulting. When food is plentiful, chipmunk population increases. A sizeable group of chipmunks, called a scurry, can result.

After an active season of hoarding, chipmunks go into torpor for the winter. They are not true hibernators, since they need to eat and void waste every few days. In the interim, they can reduce their heartbeat from 350 beats per minutes to four beats per minute, and their body temperatures decline from 94 degrees Fahrenheit to 40 degrees when they go into their inactive state.

So while way off winter will give a reprieve to those who view these active little hunter-gatherers more as an acute pest than a cute one, my advice to gardeners and chipmunk-chasers is simply to turn the other cheek.

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, and author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature.