A Year Without Acorns
Looks like there’s going to be a lot of hungry squirrels in Virginia all the way up through New England this winter, due to the mysterious disappearance of acorns in the region. How bad is it? Naturalists in Arlington County haven’t been able to find a single acorn. And this is during a time when you normally crunch a handful of acorns every time you take a step into the Northern Virginia oak and hickory forests.
“I’m used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it’s something I just didn’t believe,” said Rod Simmons, a field botanist. “But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It’s a zero year. There’s zero production. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
While this is most likely an extreme in the natural acorn cycle, that doesn’t make it any easier on all those poor squirrels. Especially since last year was a great year for acorns, which caused the squirrel population to increase. Now there are already reports of skinny squirrels eating garbage, sucking down bird feed like vacuums, and feasting on pumpkins.
So if you’re the kind of person (like me) who likes seeing squirrels and other critters in your yard, you might want to put out some extra bird food this winter.
Because if you don’t, you’re going to see a lot more of this kind of stuff in your towns and cities:
