a varied diet

i found this collection of gnawed black walnuts on a single tour of my backyard. i was looking for the earliest green buds and sprouts i could find in this strange spring of ours, and instead what i found on almost every stump was yet another black walnut, either gnawed painfully open through sheer willpower, or cracked in half and offering its meat without resistance. squirrels are a bit of a nemesis around here, because of their incredible ability to find and raid birdfeeders. but i found myself admiring their persistence, as i came across their table scraps.  i began to understand how long the winter must have been for them, subsisting on the varied diet of black walnuts, followed by black walnuts, followed by black walnuts.

squirrel eaten black walnut shells (Juglans nigra)