It's September, are your backyard bird visitors caching?

Sometime soon, you may notice that you just don't see many birds at your feeders.  Strangely though, the seed levels in those feeders are decreasing. What gives?

In the fall, chickadees, nuthatches, titmice and jays begin hiding food to retrieve and eat later in the season. This behavior is called “caching.” Caching helps birds survive during bad weather and when food sources are low. These birds can store hundreds of seeds a day, and each seed is placed in a different location.  They generally remember where each one is, even months later.    

By providing a foundational feeder filled with their favorite foods, you can help your birds with their caching needs.  I like to add seeds in the shell to my offerings this time of year, as these seeds will not spoil as quickly as seeds that have had their shells removed.  The birds will swoop onto your feeders, grab a seed and take off.  Your seed levels go down, but you likely won't see them make those hundreds of very short visits.

Chickadees prefer to cache black oil sunflower seeds; often eating a small portion before hiding it in and under bark, dead leaves, knotholes, clusters of pine needles, gutters, shingles and in the ground. Chickadees cache more in the middle of the day when visiting feeders.

Titmice are rather particular. They choose the largest sunflower seeds available to eat and cache. Titmice and chickadees like to cache seeds within 130 feet of bird feeders; your yard or a neighbor’s yard. Often, they tuck seeds into the bark and crevices of a wood pile or on a large branch. They even cache them under mulch in a garden.

Nuthatches prefer heavier sunflower seeds over the lighter ones.  They prefer to hide foods on deeply furrowed tree trunks and the underside of branches. Nuthatches are also known to hide seeds under a shingle or behind wooden siding.

Jays love to cache peanuts, sunflower seeds, acorns and pine nuts. They are especially fond of peanuts in the shell. They bury them in the ground and are known to cache about 100 in a day; emptying a feeder in no time. Watch for them make repeated trips to your feeders (or an oak or pine tree) and fly off. They can travel up to two miles to bury their nutritious treasure.

Providing the supplies our caching birds will need to help them survive winter and early spring is just another way to bring more joy to the joy of bird feeding.

For more information on seed caching, check out this Nature Centered podcast: Nature Centered Podcast: Sharing Survival Strategies