The cluster of yellow flowers below were found just off the path between the campsite and the main trail. They were tiny flowers, and were being thoroughly enjoyed by a host of insects. 

A number of pine trees around the camp were surrounded by deep piles of what appeared to be large chunks of sawdust. In some places, the material was close to three feet deep. While mulling this odd feature over, my thoughts were intermittently interrupted by a small, dark-gray squirrel. It kept up an abrupt, strident chatter while it bombarded me with short pine twigs containing one or two pine cones and tufts of needles. 

I sat down and took stock of this obnoxious critter. Fortunately, among the literature brought along on this trek was a copy of "A Sierra Club Naturalist's Guide: The Southern Rockies" by Audrey DeLella Benedict.

This book is now out of print, but used copies are available on-line at prices hovering around $10.00 or less. Click on this link to order it: A Sierra Club Naturalist's Guide to the...  

Benedict's book contains a wealth of information about the small, dark-gray squirrel, and its enduring love-hate relationship with the pine trees surrounding the camp. The squirrel is known as the Chickaree (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). 

Chickarees prefer to live among the Rocky Mountain lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia). This tree has tall, straight trunks (hence its name) but puny-looking cones and short, 2-inch long needle bundles, two needles to a bundle. 

The chickaree is highly territorial, and this was the cone-caching season. Cones stored before the deep snows provide this animal's primary food supply through winter and early spring. It keeps up a noisy chatter to warn other chickarees to get lost.

Biologists believe the chickaree and the lodgepole pine evolved together. They think they know how that relationship influenced the way each of them developed. 

Over the millennia, the only lodgepole cones that survived the chickaree's voracious appetite were the toughest ones in the bunch. Chickarees survived only if their jaws were muscular enough to strip the armored scales off to get to the tender seeds inside. Over time, in accord with the dynamics of natural selection, the lodgepole pine crafted a tougher and tougher cone, while the chickaree developed a stronger and stronger jaw. Today's chickarees have a unique bony ridge atop their skulls to provide better anchorage for their jaw muscles. Still, the chickaree feeds on the most tender cones in the crop first, discarding the toughest ones altogether.

This mutual balancing act enables the strongest chickarees to survive the winters, while preparing the lodgepole forest to survive the next forest fire.

Lodgepole cones don't open up and release their seeds unless and until they are roasted. So, whenever a lodgepole forest is devastated by fire, the hardiest cones in the forest supply the seed stock for a new crop of trees. These seeds carry the genome that codes for tough pine cones, so many of the new trees have that trait. Isn't that fascinating? Biologists are always coming up with new theories about this kind of stuff. But this present theory seems to make sense.

Oh... and the piles of stuff under the pines are middens produced by the chickarees during the winter, as they rip the pinecones apart to get to their seeds. 

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