The red squirrels are little buggers. The oak trees surrounding the house are masting - producing tons of acorns. So the red squirrel's way of harvesting, is spending the morning nipping off the branches with acorns on them & collecting them while on the ground. The back yard is littered with these.

I had a red squirrel as a pet when I was a child, back home in Vukovar, Croatia. Its name was Tiki.

That must be what grey squirrels do too! I don’t recall seeing more small branches on the ground or more acorns ever.

… in Northern Illinois ( far south Chicago burbs) this happened about 3 weeks ago on my heavily wooded oak/shagbark hickory land. I cannot recall it that early or this heavy with nuts in 35 years. The old ones say that means a heavy winter. If so, it would balance out last year’s “no winter” here

Clever little destruction machines