Squirrel damage to our Sweet Chestnuts and Walnut harvest – Early October 2023.

Early October is always a worrying time for our Sweet Chestnuts and Walnuts. We have to leave them as long as possible for the nuts to grow to there best potential. We have to put in a lot of effort into controlling the squirrels, hoping there is enough left for us to harvest.

Squirrel damage to Walnut
Squirrel damage to Walnut

You can see the tooth marks on the shell inside the husk

Squirrel damage to Walnut
Squirrel damage to Walnut

With both Sweet Chestnuts and Walnuts, the squirrels are up in the tree canopy, making shooting a problem. The only time is when they have a nice tasty walnut in its mouth and its running around to find a secluded spot in the field to dig a hole and bury the nut. Its funny they can remember where they have planted them, so they can retreive them in winter. With sweet chestnuts they tend to stay in the canopy, and hold the nuts and chew them to pieces.

Squirrel damage to Sweet Chestnuts
Squirrel damage to Sweet Chestnuts

But as the nuts are not quite ripe, they do not fall away from the burrs. And those darn burrs are a bit spikey. So they just hold them and chew away at the contents, taking out the juicey sweet shoot. Then dropping the nearly empty burrs to the ground.

Squirrel damage to Sweet Chestnuts
Squirrel damage to Sweet Chestnuts
Squirrel damage to Sweet Chestnuts
Squirrel damage to Sweet Chestnuts
Squirrel damage to Sweet Chestnuts
Squirrel damage to Sweet Chestnuts

We find very few sprouted sweet chestnuts in the grass, but lots of walnuts growing. This is especially a problem if we clear the squirrels away. The squirrels can travel considerable distances to find that ‘just right’ spot to bury them.

Sprouting Walnut
Sprouting Walnut

At the squirrel nut harvesting peak, they are going night and day to gather as many as they can.

Squirrel damage to Walnuts
Squirrel damage to Walnuts

They have a preferred location in the canopy where they are on lookout, chewing away, but keep taking a check on the surroundings. So just in one area you get the husks being chewed off and thrown away.

Squirrel damage to Walnuts
Squirrel damage to Walnuts

The nuts are split apart and the kernels are eaten. Empty shells drop to the ground.

Squirrel damage to Walnuts
Squirrel damage to Walnuts

Our Walnuts and Sweet Chestnuts are grown in the middle of a field, and they know which corner has the shortest distance to the safety of the hedges. Hopefully we are ready and waiting for them.

They have an uncanny ability to sense whether a nut has got something inside. They soon discard apparently intact nuts, much to our displeasure, as we harvest them and get nothing.