Going Squirrel-ly

Two foraging patches in the "unsafe" location

My 6th grader is participating in a Science Fair in January.  Fortunately, she is as anti-procrastination as I am, so we have begun the experiment this week.  We decided on an experiment from projectsquirrel.org.  This way, the data she collects actually becomes part of a set of real information. We are finding though, that squirrels are not always willing participants, behaving the way we want them too. On the first day, they didn't forage the corn at all, then on the second day, they ripped the screw holding one of the cobs down and ran away with the cob.  On the third day, we had to go out for the morning, and when we got home, the squirrels had stolen away all four cobs.  Fortunately, we still had 6 hours of daylight, so we put out 4 more cobs and were able to get some data.

Most of the embryos were excised from these kernels. 

Of course, there were two more stealing attempts.  This time, the squirrel ran with not only the cob, but the small eye screw, wire, and 6 inch screw that anchored it in the ground.  I found it the first time--the cob had only gone about 20 feet from the foraging patch.  The second time we realized it was missing, my youngest daughter saw the squirrel trying to carry it up a pine tree.  The weight of the 6 inch screw dangling from the cob must have been too much though, since the squirrel eventually dropped it from the tree. The fourth day went much more smoothly.  We did our best to plant the screws firmly in the ground, and all of the cobs remained on the foraging patches where they belonged.  The squirrels obliged by eating most of the kernels off the cobs in the foraging locations that we had chosen as "safe".