I made a post not too long ago about a folk legend in which you can predict the severity of winter by splitting persimmon seeds. In that, I mentioned one of the other common (though not really any more accurate) methods, that being observation of a “mast year” for nut trees. It appears that my local area is having a mast year, which presumably means we’re in for a hard winter.

Masting refers to the occasional, somewhat unpredictable cycle in which trees generate A LOT more nuts than normal. This is coordinated between trees, somehow, so that the whole forest generally goes wild with production of acorns, hickory nuts, beech nuts, walnuts, etc. The resulting nut glut (mast) is meant to overwhelm consumers of the nuts, so that the chances of surviving seeds and seedlings is elevated.

This also has the effect of creating a baby boom among nut-eaters, like squirrels. Mother squirrels do a great job of storing as many nuts as they can, and they respond to the bounty by themselves reproducing with increased success. Tragically, for them, next year’s squirrel population will typically be elevated, but find themselves struggling to find enough food. At the same time, those that eat squirrels (hawks, owls, foxes, etc) will also find a year of plenty, reproduce well, and then face the same shortages the following year. It’s a boom-bust cycle that ripples through the food chain for many seasons.

Anyway, back to my local trees. My wife and I were on a hike last week where we could hardly keep our footing, there were so many acorns on the ground. White oak, red oak, pin oak… they were all dropping huge quantities that would tend to cluster based on the dominant oak variety in the local area. It was like walking on marbles. I did NOT get a picture of this – too much leaf litter and no really good photogenic areas to do it.

TODAY, we were on another walk, in another area, and found the same to be true with hickory nuts, and walnuts. Walnuts are significantly larger, and easier to see among everything else on the ground – so I got some photos. Obviously these have dropped over the course of a week or so, evidenced by the different levels of decay – but this is a lot more than usual. One pictures it being dangerous to pass beneath the trees at one point. (By the way, these photos are representative of just ONE tree).

Is it doing the same thing where you live?

And… one day late, but Happy Halloween! My wife carved a nice Great Horned Owl this year!

Get Out There