I collected these acorns in Prospect Park between the base of Lookout Hill and Prospect Lake. When my daughter saw them she was astonished by their shape and called them shell casings. I have no idea where she'd ever seen shell casings before. Anyway, I'm going to take them back soon, or perhaps send them down to the starving squirrels in Virginia.
It's a relief to have proof that at least some of our Brooklyn oaks have produced abundant acorns this season after what I've been hearing about the conditions in Arlington, Va (my home town) and other areas, where there's some really hungry squirrels. The reason for the absence of nuts hasn't been discerned. Perhaps it's just an off year.
I thought my friend who's on the Asian Longhorn Beetle contingent for the Parks Department might clue me into any similar situation up here, but she hadn't heard of anything. She's pretty focused on the beetles, though. She must dream of them at night. She says a large infestation of the beetles was recently found in Worcester, Mass., and the woman owning the land now sells beetle trinkets. None for me, thanks.
3 comments:
I heard a report on NPR about this. Seems to be affecting PA and southward. NY and New England were not mentioned. Mast (acorns in bulk, as food) typically fluctuates, and some oaks don't produce every year anyway, but this seems unusually severe. Not just squirrels, since acorns are fundamental to the forest economy. Things that eat squirrels, for instance, suffer from fewer squirrels. We know so little, and even less about our influence on the planet.
Or maybe we know, but we're too busy not knowing.
I read your blog about the acorns and was reminded that this year the chestnuts in front of the Cherrydale Library were all multiples. The pods were the same size as usual and coated with painful stickers, as usual. But when you managed to separate the skin, the nuts inside were all small and multiple. There was hardly a large enough one to be worth taking home and roasting. This was curious. How could they change so dramatically from one year to the next? Then the naturalist at Gulf Branch was interviewed on local radio. She said that this was a tough year for squirrels since the acorn output was inadequate. Connection?
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