Do you think they knew??

 

No, I don't think dirty kittys should be on the table.  Nor, do I think that gray squirrels should be cleaning out my bird feeders.  But this year…. I will be feeding them.

It was months ago, that gray squirrels (at least in my area) started jumping in front of cars, in extraordinary numbers.  One day I counted six fresh dead squirrels in the 1.5 miles it takes to get to the bottom of the hill.  Driving anywhere was a challenge.  It almost seemed that they waited until the car was upon them to leap from the roadside and under the wheels.  I hated to go anywhere.   I'll do almost anything to avoid hitting an animal, or frog, or turtle.. or anything.  I swerve, slam on my brakes and drive entirely too slowly when creatures are in the road. This year it was spooky. 

The prediction is that we could lose 50% of the squirrel population this year, to starvation.  There are NO acorns.  Seriously.  I usually rake acorns into piles 3 feet high and six feet across. This year, nothing.  The turkeys are missing from my yard, too.  I know that they've been seen regularly at nearby orchards.  But here, where last year, I had 37 of them, everyday, I have none.

I hadn't given any of this much thought until my friend Manise posted a link to an article in the Boston Globe last week titled, Where Did All the Acorns Go?  Reading it got me thinking, a proverbial light bulb.  This isn't the first time we've had a shortage.  When I first moved to this oak woods, we went several years without acorns.  I remember asking around to see if these were a species I was unfamiliar with.  I didn't know that the oaks had acorn cycles.  One year, I blamed it on a gypsy moths infestation.  Not this time.  Another article I've come across describes a shortage in the mid atlantic states during 2008. That year we had a bumper crop.

The past few years have been mast years for the oaks.  Huge, abundant amounts of nuts.  It only makes sense then, that the squirrel population would have flourished.  I had only to look up to see them, racing throughout the woods, leaping branch to branch and tree to tree, small figures against the sky.  I love watching them.  Treetops full of motion, and commotion!

So, yes.. I'll be adding extra seed to the feeders.  Sammy will be pleased, he'll have a bit more to watch during the winter.  Aaahh.. the table, it will need to be cleaned before each meal.