The entire Woodpile population is off at a week long exotic seeds and nuts tasting conference. The Woodpile’s caretakers, us humans, have had a well deserved break from catering to the Woodpilers whims and fancies. They can be a rather demanding group of furballs, although they would never admit it.
We have been trying to solve a bit of mystery all spring and early summer. Dozens of clusters of sunflowers popped up everywhere – lawn, garden, flower beds, etc. According to the traditional explanation, chipmunks store all of their seeds in their burrows (called larder hoarding). We had initially ruled them out as possible culprits. The local squirrels eat the sunflower seeds before they even think about the idea of burying them. The same goes for the other critters who frequent our yards. We were beginning to give credence to the idea we had aliens secretly hiding their hoards at night. (Okay, we were getting desperate for an explanation.)
Recently, we saw a chipmunk with fully loaded cheek pouches digging in the lawn when she thought no one else was looking. Within a minute she dug a small hole, off loaded her seeds into it and then buried it. This behavior is known as “scatter hoarding.” We did a bit of researcher and found out this has been documented in some obscure scientific studies. These scattered caches of seeds are a backup plan in case something happens to their main supply in their burrows.
Mysterious clusters of sunflower popped everywhere in our yards.
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