59
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.
I am guessing it's a squirrel. Those bitches love acorns
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.
Really begs the question about who is using who. The beautiful cooperation of nature is so wonderful to behold.
I recently read an interesting book about humans who land an alien planet with sentient plants. It's worth a read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiosis_(novel)
Possible, but in the main photo on the right in the middle, there is a blue hair/down caught in a spiders thread near the barbs of the housleeks leafs. I only noticed it after I posted and checked the image from the server. It could be from a Eurasian Jays blue wing feathers. I went back on the balcony and checked if it's just an effect of the sunlight. It's really blue and idk where it came from. I have nothing blue in the vicinity, but it's outside; so could be a coincidence.
I don't know how blue jays can dig a hole. But who knows