What are the squirrels burying ?

[DustyLee123]

I keep finding, what looks like, a round nut shell and it often has a root type growth protruding from it. What is it ?

So when I watch them why are their cheeks so huge! Also our squirrels are a little chubby

Hazelnuts/cobnuts. They've also found a local fig tree as I keep finding unripe figs near my back door and there's no fig tree in my or my neighbours garden!

In our garden it's always walnuts which do tend to be a bit more compact than the ones you get in the supermarket.

It is probably walnuts.

If you were going to sleep for a couple of months you'd probably be a bit chubby too.

Our local fox family spend a lot of time sniffing and scrabbling on our lawn. Either they are finding caches of nuts or some tasty fungus.

That’s apart from the oak trees - there’s a theory that most oaks in the UK are from jays

It looks like those who said walnut were right !

I didn't know walnuts grew in the UK so off to read. I thought France as the nearest country, unless they are the commercial growing country 🤔

Glad the mystery is solved!

Edit
The nuts are said to help lower cholesterol
^^ oh...now I've found a good excuse for walnut cake!!

Yes we had two massive walnut trees in our garden when we moved in, probably dating from Victorian times. One died unfortunately but the other one keeps on going and produces a lot of walnuts for the squirrels. They are very entertaining to watch.

Yes, jays cache a lot of acorns. I read an article that asserted that jays were the way that oaks were able to spread uphill. They'll also watch squirrels to steal the nuts they bury so sometimes the squirrels will just pretend to bury them.

I don’t think we grow walnuts commercially or even for timber, but they were often planted in large gardens. Our local park has one.