I attracted this red squirrel with peanuts but it eats a wide-variety of foods including insects, seeds, bark, nuts, fruits, mushrooms and pine seeds or cones. Sometimes it eats insects, young birds, mice and rabbits. A large part of its diet is made up of pine seeds. In the fall, it will cut green pine cones from trees and store them in the ground. It also stores nuts and seeds in piles or middens under logs, at the base of trees and underground. The red squirrel also drinks tree sap from maple trees. It bites a tree until the sap flows out and returns to drink it after the water in the sap has evaporated. The red squirrel is most active in the early morning and the late afternoon. It is a solitary animal, except for mothers and their young. The red squirrel defend its territory and is very vocal and chatters, growls and screeches.