Temperate Forest
If you’re indoors, step outside for a moment. Look around. No matter where you are, at the corner of North Avenue and Clark Street in Chicago or the intersection of Roosevelt and Winfield roads in the far western suburbs, you’re standing in the middle of a temperate forest: hot in the summer, cold in the winter; high levels of precipitation; a wide variety of deciduous trees like maple, walnut and birch; and just as diverse an animal population, including wolves, foxes, bears, coyotes, rabbits, deer, raccoons, moose, and more species of reptiles and birds than most people can identify. Much of the Midwest is a temperate forest.

One species you’ll see in urban areas of a temperate forest is the fox squirrel (Sciurus niger), so-called because its reddish-orange fur is similar to that of a fox.

Late fall, early winter is a busy time of year for squirrels. Females build nests of dry leaves in preparation for breeding and brooding. From one to six pups are born naked and blind. Their life span is four to seven years. The fox squirrel is most active when harvesting nuts such as walnuts, acorns and pecans. They will gather as many as possible and bury them in the ground, returning later when they’re hungry to dig them up. Squirrels are able to find the nuts again thanks to a sharp sense of smell. If enough nuts are not available, squirrels will eat such vegetative food as buds, flowers and leaves, as well as insects and bird eggs, which they swipe from nests.

A less conspicuous resident of the temperate forest is the Dekay’s brown snake (Storeria dekayi), a protected species in some states. A light stripe runs down the back of the nonvenomous brown snake, which stretches 13 to 18 inches. (They will bite in self-defense, but the bite is harmless; more often a snake that feels threatened will flatten itself like a ribbon.) Black spots are found on either side of the stripe. The head is sometimes unmarked, but it usually has an upside-down black V under the eye that stops at the mouth line.

Brown snakes are usually found around water – bogs, marshes, streams, ponds and lakes – yet far from the water’s edge. Typical hiding places are underneath rocks and logs. They eat earthworms, slugs, snails and soft-bodied insects. Larger brown snakes sometimes will eat frogs and tadpoles.

Both fox squirrels and Dekays brown snakes, named for New York naturalist James Edward DeKay, are seen in Chicago area woodlots and forested areas, though spotting the less common snakes takes more patience.