By Quill Nishi-Leonard ’27
Editor-in-Chief
Why are the squirrels burying nuts?
As winter begins to descend upon the Northern Hemisphere, squirrels begin engaging in a practice known as caching — where they bury nuts in the ground — to prepare for the coming scarcity.
Some squirrels limit their caching to one or two locations, while others spread out their burying across multiple places. These practices are known respectively as larder and scatter hoarding. The squirrels most commonly spotted around the College’s campus are eastern gray squirrels, and according to the Scientific American, they “tend to favor scatter hoarding.” The squirrels you see hoarding nuts on campus likely have many different caches in many different spots.
Can squirrels remember where they’ve cached their nuts?
While it’s sometimes thought that the squirrels are unable to keep track of the nuts they bury, “a growing body of research suggests that they do remember,” per the Scientific American. Scatter hoarding can make it more difficult for the squirrels to remember where they’ve buried everything, but the practice is still overall beneficial to the squirrels. “Each cache’s smaller size eliminates the risk that the squirrels will lose their entire stash in one go,” the Scientific American explains.
To increase their chances of successfully locating their caches in the winter, eastern gray squirrels will also lick the nuts they bury. As reported by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, the squirrels “can smell the spit through the snow and frost.”
Why are the leaves changing color?
The College’s campus is surrounded by deciduous trees, or trees that have leaves that change color from green to yellow, orange or red as winter approaches. The green hue is caused by chlorophyll, which trees use “to absorb energy from sunlight during photosynthesis,” according to an article by the Smithsonian. As temperatures drop and the days grow shorter, deciduous trees gradually stop producing chlorophyll.
In an email interview with Mount Holyoke News, Biology Club Secretary Johanna Schwachter ’28 explained the process: “The reds, oranges and yellows of fall foliage are actually present within leaves all year long! Deciduous trees' leaves usually appear green because the pigment chlorophyll … masks the presence of these other colors. But once trees sense the change in seasons, they stop producing chlorophyll to prepare for dormancy. As chlorophyll breaks down, the underlying colors are revealed. Carotenoids are responsible for the yellows and oranges.”
Red leaves are the result of a chemical change, according to the Smithsonian: “Sugars that can get trapped in the leaves produce new pigments … called anthocyanins … that weren’t part of the leaf in the growing season.”
“Even though we can only see them for a few months, these pigments have important roles in the leaves year-round: Carotenoids are antioxidants … they protect cell structure … and anthocyanins act as ‘sunscreen,’ preventing damage from excess sunlight,” Schwachter said.
It’s getting colder, so why are the geese still here?
The Canada geese in Massachusetts can actually be divided into two different groups, according to the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. “The first is the migratory population which passes through in the spring and fall,” the Division’s website states. “The second is the resident population.”
The geese that can be found around campus year-round are resident geese. While resident geese may move within the state — they prefer to live near water that hasn’t frozen over — they rarely completely migrate because they’re the descendants of captive geese. In the early 20th century, hunters sometimes owned captive geese, often using them as decoys. These decoys helped hunters lure migratory geese in as they moved through the state. The Boston Globe states that by the 1930s, “using live geese as decoys was outlawed,” in Massachusetts and as a result, many captive geese were released into the wild.
These formerly captive geese had no migratory instincts, a trait that can be still found in their descendents, today’s resident geese.
Karishma Ramkarrran ’27 contributed fact-checking.