Townsend’s chipmunk (Neotamias townsendii)
This week’s crawly is a cheeky chipper! Meet Townsend’s Chipmunk (Neotamias townsendii NEE Tamias townsendii – the binomial name change is recent, so you may find them under either name in research materials or field guides).
As we recently discussed in All Things Oregon, Oregon has five species of chipmunk. Of the five, Townsend’s is the largest – and yet – the hardest to see.
There’s a good chance you’ve never seen one. I hadn’t until this July.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife answers the “why haven’t I ever seen one?” question perfectly:
“They tend to be more secretive than most [chipmunks] and are heard more often than seen. When active, they tend to stay in the shadows or hidden by thick vegetation. When observed, they commonly are sitting on a stump, log or low branch.”
That may be the most accurate field guide description ever. However, until July 9, 2025, I would not have known that.
The pictured Townsend’s is my yard chipmunk. In the four and one-half years I’ve lived here I’ve never seen a single ‘munk.
In May of this year, I started hearing a critter I couldn’t identify. They sounded “squirrel-like” but I know the calls of all my yard squirrels (because, of course I do). No matter how hard I searched, I could never get my eyes on the “mystery barker.”
Then on July 9, a bag of Pennington’s shelled peanuts I bought for the birds exploded as I pulled it from my car, creating Peanutpalooza in my driveway. When I looked through the upstairs screen door around 8:30 p.m. to see who might be taking advantage of the peanut bounty I was gobsmacked to see a chipmunk.
Here I will verify the “largest” part of the Townsend’s description. It took my brain a few seconds to realize this munk was in fact a munk. They are quite noticeably larger than our other commonly seen chippies such as Allen’s and Yellow-pine.
On July 13, I was able to just barely see Townie “hidden by thick vegetation” after following the bark for a while. ODFW got that spot on too. Then July 15 Townie finally came out in the open on “a low branch” (hat tip to you again ODFW) to get some sunflower seeds from a feeder.
Aside from being very large and very shy, Townsend’s have very similar lifestyles to our other chipmunks. They are a solitary species to the point of being aggressive against other chipmunks of any species. Possibly this is why they bark so much, they are declaring their territory.
It also means my yard Townie gets all the peanuts to themselves.
They do call détente to mate, but then the females do all the child rearing and once the kiddos are mature, they have to bark off and get their own territories. A Townie’s territory can be as large as 1.2 square acres, but they only actively defend the central portion closest to their burrow.
Also, as with other chipmunks, their “burrow” can be an actual burrow dug by another animal then abandoned (they don’t dig their own) or any cozy, protected spot such as a tree hollow, or nice patch under a log.
Townie’s are active year-round, though they will hole up during the most inclement days. Their diet changes with the seasons. In every season their favored food is mushrooms, especially truffles which they can smell through the soil.
In summer, they feed mainly on berries including blackberries (Rubus fruticosus), salal berries (Gaultheria shallon), and thimble-berries (Rubus parviflorus). In the fall, they switch to seeds: maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) seeds, thistle (Cynareae) seeds, grain seeds, conifer seeds, but also acorns (Quercus), huckleberries (Vaccinium and Gaylussacia), grass and roots. My yard is the perfect Townie Buffet, chock full of blackberries and enough maple seeds to feed a chipmunk army.
Still, it’s that favored mushroom diet which makes Townies awesome critters to have around because they spread the mushroom spores as they trek around their little territories. When the mushrooms grow, they provide nutrients for trees and other flora as well as soil enrichment.
Final fun fact: Townies and our other four chipmunk species are teeth-a-riffic! They all have a small vestigial upper premolar that all western North American chipmunks possess, and eastern North American chipmunks do not.
Vestigial: of a body part or organ: remaining in a form that is small or imperfectly developed and not able to function – Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary
There are scattered sightings of Townsend’s in our area, so it pays to know their bark if you’d like to see one someday (partially obscured probably, but you never know). You can hear both of their types of bark here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGHFxEh3Ig