Oak buds are food for turkey, ruffed grouse and bob white. Deer, northern flying squirrel, chipmunk, gray fox, and black bear eat acorns. Scarlet oak acorns are preferred by turkey, blue jay and common grackle. White oak acorns are a choice food of blue jay, brown thrasher and ruffed grouse. Acorns of northern red oak are food for many birds such as the rufous-sided towhee, cardinal, hermit thrush, and several species of woodpecker.
Acorns are a rich food and extremely important for the survival of many species of wildlife.
Lots of oak trees we see have grown from acorns cached, but not retrieved, by a squirrel or a blue jay. People have long held oak in special regard as the foremost of trees. Its physical qualities recommend it as such. After the glaciers receded from Europe in the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, oak colonized the newly exposed soil. Oak forests spread across the landscape and tribes moving north with the softening climate saw the oaks as providers of life.