A red squirrel enlivens our winter view

We have a bird feeder filled with black oil sunflower seeds outside our living room window.  It’s been visited by chickadees and blue jays.  But a red squirrel has happily made tunnels to the feeder, too, relying on spills of seeds.

Her/his tunnels are evident; they reach from the bench nearby over to two spots near the feeder.  We can watch activity from the living or from our upstairs second bedroom.  Great fun!

He/she is collecting very large European spruce cones, too, from a nearby tree and leaving them outside the newly excavated tunnels.  Curious, we wonder. They’re such large cones. Is this a improvised cache? Hard to know.