Seasonally Savvy Fall Feeding: Cashing in on Caching
Right now chickadees, nuthatches, titmice and jays are hiding food to retrieve and eat later this 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. Each seed is placed in a different location and they generally remember where each one is, even months later! Their memory for food is incredible!
By providing a stable feeding station filled with their favorite foods, you can help your birds with their fall caching needs. Recent research has shown that a consistent and reliable source of food helps birds to build body fat reserves, reduces their physiological stress and helps to maintain a healthy body condition.
Chickadees prefer to cache 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. Both titmice and chickadees like to cache seeds within 130 feet of bird feeders, even caching them under mulch in your garden. Be sure to have some sunflower chips in your blend, as they like these 25% more than sunflower seeds in the shell.
Jays love to cache peanuts, and 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. They can travel up to two miles to bury their nutritious treasure! Titmice and nuthatches love peanuts as well, often pecking a hole in the shell and removing the tasty nut inside.
Click through the products below to order easy caching refills for your fall feeders!
No-Mess Plus Peanuts in the Shell Peanut Splits Bark Butter Bits
Nature Centered Podcast from WBU A new podcast from Wild Birds Unlimited about feeding the birds and enjoying nature right in your own backyard. Relax, enjoy the birds, and stay Nature Centered.
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