It’s the squirrel Olympics here at my house. I have three Japanese magnolias in my front yard that seem to be their private playground. Using these trees, oak trees next door and across the street, fencing, and railings, they range across my immediate neighborhood. Maybe they are in everyone’s yards in equal numbers, but it seems as if their headquarters are above my roof.
I quite enjoy watching the squirrels’ antics as they race along the branches, stopping to chatter, or else chasing each other in spirals around a trunk and across the fence line and through the leaves. Their only annoying habit is digging in my potted plants. I’ve lost several plants that the they have uprooted and thrown to the ground in their search for buried nuts.
Not only do I have two mature oak trees nearby, but my next door neighbor has two pecan trees near our property line. The squirrels are well supplied. No wonder they are camped out in my yard. Not only can I hear the creatures scurry over my roof, but the pecans routinely drop with a resounding clatter, or maybe it’s the squirrels hurling spent pecan shells.
Oh, one more annoying squirrel habit—my porch is littered with chewed bits of pecans that I should sweep off daily, but I know there will just be more the next day. It makes walking barefoot out there extremely hazardous.
There seems to be a bumper crop of pecans, and squirrels, this autumn, and that’s probably a related phenomenon. And it might be explained as a mast fruiting for these pecans, though I can’t confirm it.
Several varieties of trees experience mast fruiting, a synchronized excess production of fruit (nuts) within a geographic population of a species. Most years, oaks and pecans produce about the same amount of acorns and pecans, with variations depending on weather conditions. However, in some years, and it’s never predictable, the trees will produce an over-abundance, raining manna for the squirrels and other animals who depend on them for sustenance.
This is currently happening in the northern mid-western states like Michigan with oak trees. They are having a mast year of acorns, and I can imagine the squirrels there are in heaven. They will eat their fill and bury many, but still more acorns are littering the sidewalks and forest floors.
Why and how does this happen? It’s not completely understood, but there are some intriguing theories. If nut production and consumption are in balance, there is not much chance for new trees to develop. But if they produce an abundance of nuts, the animals will be satiated, and more of the nuts will be left over to have a chance to germinate into new trees. It might be a way for the populations of the trees and animals to stay in balance.
We already know that trees “talk” with each other through hormones and pheromones in the air, and through the network of fungal hyphae in the soil, warning each other of threats and sharing resources. So why should they not communicate the timing of mast fruiting in this way? “Hey, Pete Pecan, we’re going to all make a bumper crop of pecans this year. Our numbers seems to be getting a little low. So gear up, let’s do it. And pass the message on down to Pauline Pecan.”
If the trees and the animals that rely on them for food can cooperate and balance each other, surely we humans can support and live in harmony with each other and with all living things. We even have the superior intelligence to make choices to achieve this goal. Nature has an innate intelligence about such matters, and Native Americans and other indigenous cultures throughout the world seem to have figured it out.
Let’s learn from this wisdom.