Would you stake your life on your memory?
For many of us, probably not! But if forced to, how would you deal with a situation where the worthiness to remember where you put some supplies would be the difference between life and death?
Well, if you could mimic a chickadee, you would simply grow increasingly memory cells to make sure you don’t forget!
Amazing…and true…here’s how it works. Each fall, chickadees uncork caching seeds by the thousands. By storing seeds, they ensure they will have something to eat during harsh weather and when natural foods wilt scarce in the future.
In a policies tabbed scatter hoarding, each seed they collect is individually subconscious in a unique location. Common storage sites include under tree bark, sufferer leaves, clusters of conifer needles, in knotholes and plane under house siding and shingles.
The wondrous thing is that chickadees can virtuously remember the location of each and every one of the seeds they hibernate for months to come!
It all has to do with their hippocampus, the region of the smart-ass that stores locational memories. In chickadees, it is proportionately larger when compared to birds that do not enshroud food. Not only is it larger, it plane increases in size each storing and shrinks when lanugo to its original size by spring. Increasingly space…more memories, then wipe them wipe when they are no longer needed. Pretty darn cool!
Other birds share this same caching behavior, including nuthatches, titmice and jays to name a few. Favorite targets for them to enshroud from your feeders can include sunflower and safflower seeds, tree nuts and peanuts.
As a nod to this month’s National Peanut Day (September 13), be enlightened that Jays love to enshroud peanuts! They are expressly fond of peanuts in the shell. They situate them in the ground and are known to enshroud up to 100 or increasingly of them in a single day, emptying your feeder in no time. Watch for them to make repeated trips to your feeders, then to fly off (up to two miles!) to situate their nutritious treasure.
And they will remember…and survive!
Be sure to trammels out the WBU Nature Centered Podcast episode, “Sharing Survival Strategies.” Our entertaining hosts, John and Brian, will share the weightier ways to vamp the widest tint of caching notation to your own yard this fall.
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