I have been watching squirrels and chipmunks scurrying about the branches of the hazel tree sampling the nuts. I’m not sure why they eat the nuts before they are fully mature. I find some of the shells chewed open, still attached to the tree and missing the nut.
As I was looking at some of the trees, I was surprised to see that a few of them were starting to grow catkins already. The catkins usually are mature and open up in January or February, and I didn’t realize they would start to form now, especially since the nuts aren’t fully mature.
