Dear Bart,
The squirrels are busily gathering nuts for the winter and running around ever so fast to stash them. I barely have time to blink before they are running back for more of the unshelled walnuts. I've never seen such excitement. It's like they're having a harvest celebration.
Question: Where are they keeping all these nuts?
Thanks,
Sandy
Answer: Hi Sandy, I'm an expert at this subject, so let's get squirrelin'.
I am a Fox squirrel, but let's start with the red squirrels. I heard through friends that red squirrels have a preference for the seeds from conifer cones. They store their conifer seeds and the discarded cone leaves in an enormous above ground pile called a midden. I like to think of a midden as a mix of garbage and snacks you want to eat later.
Can you believe they have their midden right in the middle of their territory? Any squirrel can easily find their snacks. In my opinion, storing food in only one location is inconvenient. When I am hungry I need a snack now. I don't want to scurry around acre after acre to satisfy my sweet tooth.
The Red's are very territorial and fight any thief coming for their seeds. A fair warning to keep your mitts off their midden!
I don’t have any gray squirrel friends, but I heard their behavior is like mine. I enjoy caching my snacks about an inch below the dirt.
Luckily, I don’t travel far because Laaaady at Kitty City serves me and my friends a daily buffet. She also changes my ice water five times a day during the sweltering Los Angeles summer. I'd like to think I am something special.
I still bury my treats like a scatter hoarder in case Laaaady takes a day off. I have hundreds of stashes around the neighborhood, but I don't bury my nuts all willy nilly; I have a system.
Each year, I cache 3,000 to 10,000 nuts. Each cache is organized into categories. I sort my cache much like those little humans organize their Halloween candy, by the size and type. Laaaaaady knows I prefer pecans and grapes. A UC Berkeley research study showed squirrels also use preference when
organizing their cache. Interestingly, they also think I use spatial memory and store a treasure map of sorts in my head to locate my snacks.
There have been several times when I returned for my grapes and somebody replaced them with raisins. I bet it was the blue jay who lives around the corner. She is always staring at me when I bury my food. I often pretend to bury the grape to throw her off. I am almost certain I have her fooled.
In my opinion, caching your nuts all over the place is far superior to having only one midden in the middle. Don't you think so?
Seriously, the Laaaaaady, can't remember where she puts half of her stuff. Her spatial memory is not good like mine, and that is why she added memory games to the Squirrel Zone on our Kitty City Squirrels website.
