Those Balls of Leaves in Illinois Trees Are Not What You Think They Are

All my life, I thought those big balls of leaves, in an otherwise bare tree, were for something entirely different from the truth.

What's That Big Ball of Leaves in the Tree

That's how the lie started for me. I was pushing one of my children on a tire swing underneath a big pin oak tree in my backyard. It was a sunny and breezy mid-March afternoon and it was also unseasonably warm. Looking straight up into the sky she asks,

"What's that big ball of leaves up in the tree over there?"

After one thousand hours of raking up that oak tree's leaves and acorns the previous October, I looked up at that big ball of leaves not on the ground as 5 fewer minutes of raking. but I told her,

"It's a bird's nest."

Guess what, it's not.

I didn't know then what it was, and that daughter on the swing is in college now and I just found out what it was. I've looked at those big 'leaf baskets' in empty trees for so many years and never gave it a second thought.

Telling my daughter that the big ball of leaves was a bird's nest is not entirely wrong, however.

That ball of leaves may have started as a bird's nest. After birds decide to leave a nest, it’s common for the animal that built that big ball of leaves and twigs to then take over that space.

Is that animal a bigger bird, perhaps a crow or an owl?

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The animal that takes over the small bird's nest gets busy expanding it with more leaves and twigs and then uses it as their new home.

That home belongs to

a squirrel. That big ball of leaves and twigs is called a drey.

And they're doing some remodeling work right now because it's baby-making season.

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Squirrel Drey

According to the video below from BBC Earth, when all the leaves fall from trees and you see those large bundles still in the branches, what you have found is a hideout for squirrels, called a "drey."

The squirrels use these dreys as a safe place to sleep, stay warm, and raise their young.

Next time you shake your tree, be careful, a face full of baby squirrels could be headed straight for ya.

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