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An animal I didn't see took the acorn that it buried in my 5th floor balcony flower pot in October
(sh.itjust.works)
This is a followup of: https://sh.itjust.works/post/48867881
Photo description: The acorn is missing now in the hole the animal made in the remnants of the Edelweiss that died last year in the flower pot with red houseleek and some grass coming out. The grass has flowers now and the housleek grew bigger, as the winter is over.
Oaks have made sure of it. They make the red acorns (that sprout in the fall) the ones that are better for a squirrel to bury far away while giving the squirrels tender white acorns to eat right away - there by ensuring strong distribution of seeds. And every so often they have a mast year where there make way more acorns than the squirrel population can eat (but will still bury, just in case). But the mast years are usually separated by several squirrel generations so the increase in nuts doesn't lead to a permanent increase in population - thus making future mast years more beneficial to the oaks.