CACHING SEEDS Written by Colin Bartlett

Photo: Steller's Jay (R. Hocken)

What a summer we have been enjoying and it looks like it is going for a while. Even though summer looks like it will never end we can see that the seasons will be changing soon. How can we see this, by watching the change in the activity at the backyard bird feeders. With nesting season basically over we have begun to see flocks of chickadees and nuthatches returning to the backyard, and if you watch closely you will notice that these little creatures are hard a work storing seed for the up coming winter. The storing of seed begins around the middle of August and will be part of the bird’s daily routine throughout the winter.

There are a few ways for birds to survive a winter, especially when their food supply has peaked during a different season and then is almost non-existent during the winter. One is to move to where there is a constant supply of food available during that season. This is what we know as migration, the birds heading south to a steady food source. Another is to stay and scrounge for what ever can be found to feed on, avoiding the hazards of the migration but also having to deal with the possible depletion of food. Then there is the storing of food. When the food is at it’s peak the birds will store it until needed at a later date, this is also known as hoarding, and caching.

Not all birds hoard seed. In the backyard the common birds to see doing this are the Steller’s Jay, Chestnut-backed Chickadees and the Red-breasted Nuthatches.

The chickadees and nuthatches are busy right now storing seeds and we have had the pleasure of watching them hide their seeds at the feeders behind the store. They have been storing them in the old stump out back and at home they have been stuffing the seeds in amongst my lumber stack. Also in my backyard I have watched the Red-breasted Nuthatch storing the seeds in the bark of the fir tree. The nuthatch picks a suitable sunflower seed and fly off to the tree then stuffs the seed in the bark of the tree but does not open the shell to eat the seed, instead leaving the seed and returning to the feeder for another. The woodpeckers must have a great time when they are scouring the tree for food and find all these sunflower seeds. Of course, the king of the backyard birds for hoarding seed has to be the Steller’s Jay. The chickadees and nuthatches are continuously hoarding seed one at a time, where the Steller’s Jay moves in and fills it’s grope with plenty of seed. I remember a story of an incident where a Steller’s Jay that had just left a feeder and had an incident with a glass panel on a deck. The jay was o.k. and flew off but not before dropping it’s load of sunflower seed. When they counted the seeds there were 33 black oil sunflower seeds that the jay had dropped and who knows how many the jay still had.

It may seem that the Steller’s Jay scares all the other birds away from the feeder when they arrive but it is just part of the pecking order. The larger the bird the higher in the pecking order they are. Once the larger birds have left you will notice the smaller birds return to the feeders to get their share.

One woodpecker that is not seen around here but is unique in storing seed is the Acorn Woodpecker. These woodpeckers drill out a hole in an old snag and fit an acorn into the hole. The holes are drilled out precisely to fit the nut in tight, so no other animal can steal it. These old snags are littered with holes that are filled with acorns and are known as a granary.

After a winter of birds storing seeds all over the garden it is interesting to see some of these seeds germinating in odd places. It may be sunflowers sprouting all over the garden or on a firewood pile, and peanuts, in shell, that are sprouting. Many seeds are not used after they have been stored. The seeds may have been stolen by another animal or may have gone rotten. It is commonly thought that the birds just don’t know where they stored the seeds. Well, birds do remember where the seeds are stored.  One study that was done at Utah State University, studied the Clark’s Nutcracker in aviaries. They found that the Clark’s Nutcracker used objects or landmarks, such as a rock, to remember where they had seed stored. If the object was moved the Clark’s Nutcracker would go to where the object was moved to, they did not know where the seed was without the object. Also it is natural instinct for these birds to store seed, but the birds really do not need to use their hoards of seed, because the bird feeders are always full for them to feed at. 

A favorite seed for birds to store is good old black oil sunflower seed and skinless peanuts, so make sure you have some available to attract the chickadees, nuthatches and jays, so you can enjoy the marvels of nature and watching them store seed in the oddest places.

Happy birding!!