Acorn bumper crop this year?

Excerpts from the Globe's environmental blog.

I don't tend to notice them each fall until my shoe crunches on one during a walk, or they drop on my car hood when it's parked under an oak tree.

But this year, it's hard to miss the massive number of acorns raining down on the New England landscape. From backyards in Northampton to city streets in Providence, many oak trees appear to be producing a healthy - if not record-breaking - crop of the nut.

Oaks don't produce acorns every year, scientists say. Trees tend to produce one bumper crop every two to seven years and then a small crop the following year, for reasons researchers still don't fully understand. It can take two years for an acorn to form from an oak flower and a tree's production likely hinges on everything from weather conditions to natural variance among trees.

Yet that acorn crop can determine if winter will mean survival for squirrels, chipmunks, blue jays, mice and other animals - or starvation.

"Acorns form the base of the wildlife food community, there are so many animals that feed on acorns," said John Scanlon, forestry project leader for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. Indeed, when there are no acorns around my neighborhood, squirrels seem to dig up virtually every tulip bulb I plant. When there are acorns, they leave them alone.

Scanlon says the crop on state lands appear to be typical this year, while several readers and forestry experts say it appears particularly heavy in swaths near the New Hampshire border, and parts of southeast and west Massachusetts. and western.

New England is home to at least 10 kinds of oak trees, and the acorn has long played a role in local culture. It is believed to bring luck. But folk wisdom dictates that a big acorn crop is a harbinger of a tough winter.

BETH DALEY