Q. Do birds hide food or store it somewhere?
Especially during fall and winter, many birds like Blue Jays, Black-capped Chickadees, nuthatches, and Tufted Titmice will hide food to retrieve and eat at a later time. This behavior is called "caching".
Caching helps birds survive during bad weather and when food sources are low. These birds store hundreds of seeds a day. Each seed is placed in a different lcoation and they remember where each one is, even a month later!
Here's some caching fun facts:
- Some birds' hippocampus, the spatial memory part of the brain, actually grows larger in the fall to help them remember where the stored food.
- Because weather conditions are typically more severe, northern birds rely on caches more than southern birds. Not surprisingly, more northern birds have larger hippocampi for greater memory storage than southern birds.
- 11 species of oak trees have become dependent on jays for the dispersal of their acorns.
Provide an easily accessible food source to help your birds with their caching habits!
Adapted from information provided by WBU, Inc.