Squirreling away

The wildlife in and around your garden

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Squirreling away

Postby alison on Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:50 pm

I have two squirrels that play in my sycamore tree and in the garden. They often climb up onto the bird table and eat their fill or take the blackbirds apples off the ground. They are always well fed.
We have lots of Horse Chestnut trees in Temple Newsam Park where every year we go to get the conkers. As conkers seem to be banned at schools etc not everyone plays with them now so I decided to bring some home for my squirrels as we don't have any of these trees nearby. I brought them last year as well so expected them to take the conkers immediately as last autumn.
In the beginning I just put a few on the grass, but after a week or so they were still there. I decided that I would put quite a lot ( as we picked well over a hundred) in a pile on the patio at the bottom of the garden. Maybe they wanted dry ones as the grass has been so wet lately. They stayed for two days so I thought "well they obviously don't want them" but the following day they had all disappeared in one go.
This week I put them in the same place and they all disappeared immediately so I reckon my planters are now filled with conkers for the winter :) there is no way they have eaten them all.
I still have two good piles left so I think I will leave it a couple of weeks and then put them out. I might even play a great game of conkers. :lol:
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Re: Squirreling away

Postby kaz on Sat Oct 16, 2010 9:42 am

Who knows what goes on in the garden when our backs are turned... I would love cctv (night vision) set up just so I could find out. A few years back I wondered how the peanuts were going so quickly from the bird table... then one day I spotted 2 squirrels grabbing nuts and with great haste, burying them in my lawn and padding the grass down afterwards.
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Re: Squirreling away

Postby alison on Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:10 pm

What a great sight that would be. I guess for a few moments they would have been aireating the lawn. It is strange that even after being constantly fed each day they still instinctively bury some for later. It must be so much in their genetic makeup that it is a natural thing for them to do.
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