Yes, grey squirrels eat meat. They are classified as omnivores, not herbivores, and their diet regularly includes insects, bird eggs, and occasionally small vertebrates. While nuts, seeds, and acorns make up the bulk of what they eat, animal protein is a consistent part of their feeding behavior rather than a rare anomaly.
What Animal Foods Grey Squirrels Eat
The list of animal foods grey squirrels consume is surprisingly long. Their most common non-plant food sources include insects, bird eggs, and amphibians. Among insects, they target large moths (particularly silk moths and hawkmoths), caterpillars, and cocoons. Researchers at the Florida Museum of Natural History have documented squirrels actively hunting imperial moths, and observations of squirrels eating caterpillars and silk moth cocoons have been reported by multiple field biologists.
Beyond insects, squirrels eat bird eggs and nestlings from a range of species. Field studies have documented squirrels raiding nests of killdeer, California quail, mourning doves, dark-eyed juncos, and American robins, among others. They’ve even been recorded eating eggs from domestic chicken coops. That said, this behavior is less common than many people assume. A large British study monitoring over 12,400 bird nests with cameras found that grey squirrels only raided about 0.5% of them, suggesting nest predation is opportunistic rather than routine.
Squirrels as Active Hunters
For a long time, scientists assumed squirrels only ate meat when they stumbled across it. That view changed significantly starting in the 1990s, when researchers identified as many as 30 species in the squirrel family as facultative predators, meaning they actively kill and eat other animals when the opportunity arises. The prey list includes adult fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
The most striking recent example comes from California ground squirrels, which were observed engaging in widespread hunting of voles in a California park. This wasn’t a few isolated incidents. Squirrels of all ages and sexes participated in hunting voles, indicating the behavior wasn’t driven by one unusual individual but was a population-wide dietary strategy. Interestingly, the squirrels didn’t appear to be short on their usual food sources. Researchers believe the high local vole population simply presented an easy protein source, and the squirrels took advantage of it.
Cannibalism has also been documented. Some squirrel species kill and eat juvenile members of their own species, though this appears to be rare and likely tied to specific environmental pressures.
Scavenging Dead Animals
Grey squirrels also scavenge, though they’re picky about it. A European woodland study that tracked which animals fed on animal carcasses identified the grey squirrel as one of the common rodent scavengers in the area. However, unlike some other scavengers, grey squirrels were only observed feeding on skeletal remains, not fresh carcasses. This suggests they may be gnawing on bones for minerals like calcium and phosphorus rather than eating flesh from dead animals.
Why Squirrels Eat Meat
The nutritional logic is straightforward. Nuts and seeds are rich in fats and carbohydrates but relatively low in protein. Insects, eggs, and small animals fill that gap. When acorn or seed supplies drop due to a poor mast year (the term for a season when trees produce fewer nuts), squirrels appear primed to seek out alternative protein and nutrient sources.
But scarcity isn’t the only trigger. The California vole-hunting squirrels had plenty of plant food available. They hunted because prey was abundant and easy to catch, not because they were starving. This tells us something important about how squirrels relate to meat: they’re opportunists. They don’t need meat to survive on any given day, but they’re cognitively and physically equipped to catch and eat it when conditions are favorable. Squirrels are fast learners with excellent vision and quick reflexes, traits that make them surprisingly effective small predators.
Climate change and habitat disruption may make meat-eating more common in squirrel populations over time. As environmental conditions shift and traditional food sources become less predictable, the ability to switch to animal protein gives squirrels a significant survival advantage. Researchers have pointed to this dietary flexibility as one reason squirrels are so resilient in urban and suburban environments, where human activity constantly reshapes the food landscape.
How Often Squirrels Actually Eat Meat
Despite all of this, meat remains a small fraction of the grey squirrel diet. Their primary foods are acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, seeds, berries, and tree buds. Many biologists describe squirrels as primarily granivorous (seed-eating) animals that consume meat occasionally and opportunistically. Think of them less like a predator that also eats plants and more like a nut-lover that won’t pass up a caterpillar or an unguarded egg.
If you’re watching grey squirrels in your yard, the vast majority of their feeding time will be spent on plant material. But if you spot one carrying a moth, raiding a bird’s nest, or gnawing on a bone, that’s completely normal squirrel behavior, not a sign that something is wrong with the animal.