I wonder if they dipped into their winter food stores this week…

There are several types of birds who stash food in the autumn, preparing for the harsh winter ahead. These birds have larger spatial memories than non-caching birds, which help them keep track of the position of objects in space. In our area, food-caching birds are White-breasted Nuthatches, Blue Jays, Tufted Titmice and chickadees.

In autumn nuthatches harvest and store hundreds of 

seeds throughout their territory using each hiding place 

only once. They hide seeds behind bark, in cracks and 

crevices of tree trunks, or in knotholes. Sometimes, they 

even cover the seeds with moss or lichens.

By spreading their food around, a behavior that’s called 

scatter-hoarding, food-caching birds help guarantee 

their survival by making it less likely their entire 

food stash will be raided by other birds. 

Blue Jays harvest several thousand acorns each fall 

and bury them in the ground. Any acorns the Blue Jays 

don’t eat sprout into saplings, so squirrels aren’t 

the only ones important to seed dispersal.

To read more about seed-caching birds, get Secret Lives of Common Birds, Enjoying Bird Behavior Through the Seasons, by Marie Read. This book has a lot of interesting bird behavior tid-bits and very beautiful photos.