Birds of a feather forage together

Category: Visitors in the garden | Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 3:39 am

I was reading an article on how birds survive the cold, harsh winters and was interested to learn that some of the birds at my feeders are food-caching birds. The White breasted Nuthatch, Blue Jay, Tufted Titmice & chickadees are scatter-horders, a behavior which helps to guarantee their survival.

Blue Jays harvest several thousand acorns each fall and bury them in the ground. Blue Jays have a gular pouch under their tongue so they can store seeds & nuts. They can store up to 5 acorns at a time.

Blue Jay ( photo / image / picture from gfreiherr's Garden )

All this time I thought the squirrels were responsible for all the holes in the grass!

Who Me? ( photo / image / picture from gfreiherr's Garden )

The chickadees, titmice, & nuthatches store and harvest hundreds of seeds throughtout their territory. Hiding it behind bark, in cracks and crevices of trees or knotholes. They have the ability to keep track of the the seeds & nuts that they hide.

Black-Capped Chickadee ( photo / image / picture from gfreiherr's Garden )

Tufted Titmouse ( photo / image / picture from gfreiherr's Garden )

White breasted Nuthatch ( photo / image / picture from gfreiherr's Garden )

Tufted Titmouse ( photo / image / picture from gfreiherr's Garden )

The peanuts are always the first to go. Now I know why these birds are so busy going back and forth from the feeders to the trees.

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Droopy wrote on Thu Jan 14, 2010 8:14 am:

Live and learn they say. :) You've got such sweet companions on your ledge and in your garden, so I hope you'll forgive them a few holes here and there.

Sjoerd wrote on Thu Jan 14, 2010 10:48 am:

This is such a nice blog entry today. The pictures are lovely to see and the text interesting to read.

Most of these birds do not live in Nederland, and are thus a bit exotic to me...and out squirrels are reddish with tufted ears.

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