Squirrels . . .

We are in a neighborhood of oak trees.  For the most part they are Post Oaks, followed by some Live Oaks, the Barkleys and finally Shumar Oaks.  The are a few scattered Burr Oaks.  This means a healthy population of squirrels.  Alas but one type of squirrels is around, Fox Squirrels,

A Fox squirrel has a tan belly and is probably the most common squirrel in the US today.  There are many other varieties but it seems to be the hardiest one and thus gradually taken over the entire region.  The primary food of squirrels is acorns but they can be picky about it.

My little squirrel, Skinny Tail, lives across the street and visits the Shumars in my front yard daily.  The Shumar makes an acorn about the size of the end of your thumb.  The Post Oak makes a small acorn about the size of the end of your pinky finger and thus is not so desirable as the Shumar acorn.  The Shumars are red oaks, that is the internal wood has a red hue to it.  And they grow a bit faster than most oak trees.  They get to be moderate in size and ours are about a foot in diameter now.  Skinny Tail has staked out our Shumars as his.

The Live Oaks are evergreen and retain their leaves all year pushing them of in the spring for new leaves to grow.  They are by far the longest lived oak trees and I know of one in Pointe Coupee, the Stoniker Oak, that is said to have been growing when LaSalle came down the Mississippi in 1700.  The have modest acorns and are generally elongated compare to the other acorns.  I am not sure of the squirrel desirability of that acorn.

The Barkley is more localized native oak and tends to not be very big.  They grow about as fast as the Shumar but never reach the same span, height, or girth of a Shumar.  Their unique characteristic is they retain their leaves after they die until next spring when they push them off.  So from a raking point of view they are more desirable for upkeep but always tend to grow at some grotesque angle, neve see to grow straight up and vertical.  I have not seen a Barkley acorn but they are fairly common in the neighborhood, we have one volunteer in the side yard.  The trunk is about five inches and the height is probably about 35 feet or so.

The Burr Oak is the granddaddy of acorn makers.  My neighbor has one he planted and the acorn is astounding in size.  The acorn is as big as a baby's fist balled up.  The squirrels have a hard time with them but because they are so big are the most desirable of acorns to them  Curtiss, my neighbor, says he watched a squirrel tugging one acorn across his yard.  It too the squirrel about 20 minutes to get it across the yard.

Skinny Tail has a girl friend, she comes over to feast too.  But he is very protective of his tree.   I have seen him take acorns across the street and bury them in my neighbor Enright's yard.  He also taunts the Enright's three dogs.  He drives them crazy.

Skinny Tail lives in the Doren's yard which is behind Enright's yard.  So the squirrel knows his territory well.

Skinny Tail will go up a limb to the bitter end and pluck off an acorn.  There are probably several hundred acorns left on the tree, more of them up high.  The lower limbs are bigger and so he attacked those first and now he must go after the others up in the crown of the tree.  That is a bit more risky.  He is slow to do that and scours the grown for any acorns that have fallen.  So how he misses a great deal of them as we have tiny oak trees coming up all over the place.

So we shall be entertained by Skinny Tail antics until the Gold Finches return.  That will be early spring.  I do not know if squirrels cache any acorns but they must as they are around us all the time.  Of course they raid the bird feeders for peanuts, and rival the Blue Jays for this morsels.  And they will eat any and all seeds, so the bird seed is sort of a desert for them.

Ironically, no squirrels have built nests in our yard.  They are in the Doren's or in the Walker's yard which is next to us.  But they are always in our yard eating.  The Doren's shoot an air rifle at them but we only fire off a cap pistol to scare the crows and the squirrels off.

Life in the Oaks goes on all year long.  Deer feed on the leaves on the lower branches, the squirrels on the acorns and of course, the Finches off the thistle seed feeders.  We have also seen the deer eat the acorns too.