Last month, I posted a squirrel coloring page. I also suggested watching squirrels for a while.
Science is all about making observations, after all!
This month, I followed my own suggestion and spent some time watching the squirrels in our front yard. They weren’t rampaging about, the way they often do. Instead, they were very busy at something–which quickly turned into a fun science mystery.
It started in early March, when I noticed a squirrel hunting through the grass
next to our house. He seemed very busy about something, but disappeared as soon as I moved.
The squirrel was back the next day. A couple days later, there was another squirrel scampering across our front steps. (This one had a reddish tinge to its fur.)
Now, the squirrels love our yard.
In the fall, three or four of them will chase each other around the hillside. Usually they stay further away from the house, though. It seemed odd when the squirrels started sniffing around the steps.
Was the bird feeder attracting the squirrels?
Was it going to start attracting mice and rats too?
After watching the newcomer for a few minutes, though, I realized what was going on. It’s a complicated explanation, so bear with me!
This part of the story goes back to November, when we tried to sprout
an avocado seed. As you can probably guess, sprouting an avocado
seed takes a long time.
We started by propping the seed over a tub of water. After a few weeks, nothing had changed.
We waited a few more weeks.
And, just when we were about to call the experiment a failure, I noticed a crack in the seed. A tiny knobby root poked through the crack.
So, we cleaned out the tub, gave the seed fresh water, and left it alone.
After a couple more weeks, the root had split into three roots. There was no sign of leaves, but we kept waiting. Finally, at the end of January, a small shoot appeared!
By early March, the shoot was several inches tall with a couple thin, not terribly photogenic leaves. Eventually, though, I decided to move the seed
into a pot.
I’d left several planter pots on our back porch over the winter. So, when I decided to pot the avocado sprout, I grabbed one of them and brought it inside.
The pot was already filled with dirt from a failed planting experiment last year. As I dug a small hole for the avocado seed, I discovered half-a-dozen maple seeds mixed in with the dirt. Our maple trees in the backyard are quite prolific.
Some of the seeds were even starting to sprout.
I’m mildly obsessed with seeds, plants, and nature in general right now. So, I gathered up the seeds and lined them up on our table to take some photos. As I did, my husband mentioned that he’d found hundreds of maple seeds sprouting in our gutters.
He’d been up on our roof recently to check for storm damage. While he was
there, he’d cleaned out the gutters. He’d cleaned them back in the fall, but they’d filled up again—the way they usually do.
And, as usual, he’d tossed the debris down into the yard.
I’d raked up most of the leaves last fall, but we hadn’t cleaned up the gutter debris yet. That meant we had piles of pine needles and maple seeds scattered across our front yard. Several of them landed around the front steps.
And the squirrels were digging through the piles to eat the maple seeds!
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