The Daily Bucket is a place where we get together and share the things we've noticed in the natural world around us. It might be that robins are building a nest in the old apple tree out back or that the crickets outside your window are keeping you awake at night or that coyote pups up on the ridge are beginning to sing with their parents every evening.
Or squirrels in your nut trees......
Doesn't matter what it is, nothing noted is too big or too small so please join in and tell us what is happening in your neck of the woods. Everyone is welcome.
We got our second rain in a week here Saturday night which brought our monthly total for August to two and a quarter inches! That's just barely under what we'd had for the past three months combined so we feel like we are swimming right now. And it feels good. The grass in our yard is turning from brown to green at a remarkable rate that has surprised me.
But still the drought has left some long term damage that won't be so easily repaired. One example is that the wild nut crop in this area is terrible. Deer, many bird species including wild turkeys and woodducks, squirrels and chipmunks, field mice, all depend on the nut crop. It's a seasonal but important part of their nutritional needs. What they will replace it with is difficult to answer. The grain crops here have mostly failed so that isn't an option. The berry crop is non existent. What's left of natures bounty this year will be have to shared by not only the critters that always depend on them but by many others who normally would get their meals from other sources.
That it is already affecting the squirrels here is obvious. We have several nut trees and they always attract the squirrels but this year has been exceptional. I hesitate to tell you how many squirrels are getting their meals from our walnut trees because my estimate might sound a little crazy to you. But I'll tell you that most all day long now we have an absolute minimum of a dozen squirrels in the yard at any one time, and there is a constant, read that as never ending, train of squirrels coming and going from the woods. You can walk out front or back or to either side and you will see squirrels and hear the chewing sounds as they munch away. Some eat right in the tree, but many others grab a nut and run for the woods. I have been kept busy chasing them away from the feeders. I am happy to give them the walnuts, but I can't afford to feed this hungry mob twenty dollar a bag sunflower seeds.
Below are a few squirrel pics I took yesterday. How they can chew through that thick outer green husk is amazing. I can't imagine what that must taste like.
This guy has figured out it is more efficient to take em two at a time.
This one's for you Polly.
I'm a little shy.
So what's happenin at your place? Got nuts?