Squirrels are notorious scatter hoarders, meaning they gather up all of the food they can find (and aren’t hungry enough to eat, yet) and come up with all kinds of crazy places to 
stash it for a hard winter’s day. For squirrels, that usually involves burying their finds beneath the ground… and almost everyone who lives in an area with a wild squirrel population has witnessed the critters at some time or another digging up holes in their yard to place objects (usually tree nuts) within.
Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, squirrels do not remember where they hide every single nut they bury. In fact, they end up forgetting where a lot of them are. The sheer volume of nuts they hide, and the great pains they often go through to trick prying eyes into thinking they’ve buried a nut in a certain spot pretty much guarantee they’ll never remember where their entire stash is.
But make no mistake, with an oak tree that (usually) rains thousands of acorns into my backyard every late summer, I have a lot of long lost buried treasures on my property! And my 42nd favorite Saturday Squirrel of all time gave me one of the best photoshoots of the whole process way back in 2013!
Looks like a good place to stash this tasty acorn!
Better put this way down there so it doesn’t get freezer burn in January!
There we go! Another job well done!
Bravo, little squirrel! I do hope you remembered to call the public utilities about buried pipelines before you dug…
Hey…. you weren’t peeking at my secret hiding spot, were you?
No, of course I wasn’t. But if a brand new oak pops up there next year, I’m holding you responsible for maintaining it!
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
like the treasure of captain blackbeard.. no one will find it ;O)
Not even Captain Blackbeard!
I enjoy watching squirrels do that “look for the right spot, dig hole, busy treasure and use both paws to firmly pat down the dirt and grass” thing. It’s cute. They’re cute. They seem to have a bottomless pit full of energy ALL DAY LONG. I sort of remember having energy like that about 50 years ago myself….sort of.
Pam
It’s been a while since I had that much energy as well…. actually, I don’t think I ever had THAT much energy.
I liken it to finding a long lost bag of chocolate in my kitchen cabinet. Though I’m not nearly as photogenic when I do.
One of those bags that expired eight years ago? I’ll bet the chocolate is photogenic….
I suspect our incredibly well-fed squirrels with all their acorns will make sure we have a lawn full of oak trees in the spring.
Well, they are considered the planters of forests, so don’t be surprised!
I had a whole sunflower garden where my tree used to be courtesy of my squirrels. I wish they would do that again. It was pretty.
I’d really love to see that happen here! As it is, I think my squirrels are great at planting weeds…
Hope you called 811 before digging.
That’s their responsibility if they nick a pipeline and blow up the neighborhood….
Squirrels sound a bit like students. You could get an entire week’s food from a departmental buffet if you were sneaky enough…
I’ll bet squirrel school would be an interesting place…