|
|
Post by NellyDee on Oct 1, 2015 13:31:39 GMT
My jays and wee red squirrels are frantically burying all the monkey nuts and peanuts I put out (think they are expecting a bad winter?). I can't help thinking that these will just rot in our damp ground. I have on and off over the last few years put out hazelnuts and again recently and they are totally ignored, they do not seem to know what they are. Any suggestion what else I can put out for them to bury, or do you think that the monkey nuts will be ok till winter - hoping that the out casings will last. I have more hope for the woodpeckers as I think they are stashing them in tree crevices.
|
|
|
|
Post by faith on Oct 3, 2015 16:11:24 GMT
I have four young red squirrels in my garden this year and, like yours, they have been madly burying nuts; like you, I have worried that the nuts will rot very quickly, especially as mine are ready shelled. However, I have come to the conclusion that – particularly as there is no shortage and winter is quite a long way away (we hope, anyway!) – that they are mostly just practising. I have watched them bury one and dig it straight up again, or bury one and then go to one they buried earlier and dig that up to eat. The garden is full of little empty holes!
My squirrels hang out mostly in the beech wood that comes down to my garden, and they have plenty of food there too. Also, I go on supplying them with nuts as fast as they consume them (I just bought another sack today) so I don't think there is much chance of them starving over the winter. If squirrels live and learn, too, once they find nuts that have rotted, perhaps they will have more sense than to bury the next lot – who knows?
|
|
|
|
Post by rowanberry on Oct 5, 2015 20:37:16 GMT
I've wondered about this, too...every spring when I go to redo the hanging baskets I find monkey nuts that have been buried in them by the jays.
The fox that visits our garden seems to have a fondness for monkey nuts... any that get cached in the ground he finds and eats.
I also tried our jays with hazelnuts, and they weren't interested either- until I shelled them for them!
|
|
|
|
Post by NellyDee on Oct 6, 2015 9:39:27 GMT
Faith I did post a reply but have discovered that if I post using my ipad it seems to disappear once back on my computer. Nothing to do with this site, it happens with other too.
I too Faith am surrounded by beech trees, with forestry behind, which I think is where the reds live. The jays nest in our beech and surrounding scrub.
I tried shelled hazelnuts last week and they all went, but too expensive at the rate all the nuts are going. I do think the reds will be ok as there was a bumper crop of fir cones this year. Not so sure about the jays as none of our rowans have fruited, though they have started eating the cotoneaster berries as they appear, they have already eaten all my plums.
Hey ho - fingers crossed
|
|
|
|
Post by faith on Oct 6, 2015 10:20:23 GMT
I get a sack of shelled peanuts which costs about £35 and lasts anything from a few weeks to a few months depending on the time of year. Yes, it is an awful expense, but when I consider the pleasure I get from seeing the squirrels and birds in my garden (and the work that gets postponed while I watch them!) then I would rather spend my money on that than on a few other luxuries. These four youngsters were an absolute hoot this year, fighting and chasing and madly burying nuts all over the place. I have tried various other things, but the peanuts are the favourites with them all (plus dripping from the butchers in the winter for the birds, which is cheap enough).
Did you see that programme, must have been Autumnwatch, I think, where they found that the squirrels decidedly preferred the hazelnuts still in their shells? I haven't found that myself, but perhaps mine are just spoilt!
I'm sorry to hear about your plums, if they were nice enough to have eaten them yourself. Do you have deer? A few years ago I had the first apples on my new little apple tree and deer (Roe) ate not just the apples but the leaves, the twigs and all the branches too! So I was left with just a stick of a trunk. I had some sense and put wire round the tree after that, but it was three years before it fruited again.
|
|
|
|
Post by Tringa on Oct 7, 2015 14:52:08 GMT
Here (Gairloch) it is not peanuts but sunflower hearts.
The commonest member of the tit family here is the coal tit. They often grab a seed and fly to a nearby perch, often within a couple of feet of the bird table, and eat it, but also will grab one and fly off somewhere else in the garden. I assumed they were caching the seeds so I watched a few and definitely they are sticking them in grassy/mossy banks.
I too wondered how well something so small would survive the average wet Winter. Perhaps I should be feeding whole sunflower seeds particularly from late summer onwards. I recall Jim on WAB was an advocate of sunflower seeds rather than hearts - perhaps he had a point.
I guess you will continue putting nuts out for the reds during the winter so even if the buried nuts rot, the squirrels will be fine. The only 'problem' I see is the Jays. You have mentioned this before - they are just too clever. It is almost as if they view the whole world as puzzle for them to solve and most of the time they do very well.
Interesting comment Faith about Roe Deer and apples. We very rarely (I know of only three times in the last two years or so) have Roes wandering through the garden and we have an apple tree. This has been untouched but is probably the sourest apple on the planet. What they really like is the Griselinia we planted and hoped would grow to be a windbreak!
Dave
|
|
|
|
Post by NellyDee on Oct 8, 2015 9:00:29 GMT
Like you Dave the commonest of the tit family are the coal tits, they are busy caching the peanuts, they have also learnt to get into my squirrel feeders and can empty the feeders, along with the blue and great, with as much speed as the squirrel. Oddly the chaffinch have not worked it out yet, you can see them watching the tits and will fly onto the feeder, but don't seem to have the courage to actually go through the entrance holes. On the down side the coal tits seem to be the favourite of the sparrow hawk.
Faith yes I did have roe and red deer but this year have seen none. I think because there is major logging going on along the Strath (Glen. When they were about they were very partial to my veg in one night they stripped the mangetout, beans, broccoli, Brussels, kale and cauliflower leaving just little stumps in the ground. The veg patch is now fenced of, but! some of the veg is being eaten by the pine martens which surprised me. As for the plums they are delicious as are the damsons, but unfortunately the jays usually get there first - last year I did manage to make one jar of damson jam. This year they have taken them all before they ripened.
Dave I am going to try sunflower seeds rather than hearts, maybe the wee wrens might go for those. They do not come to the feeders but I put out dried mealworm tucked along the stone wall, which they do come to. We lost all our wrens in the big freeze and this year is the first time I have seen them again.
|
|
