Is this unusual? (1 Viewer)

Denny Woodthorpe said:

Hi,
I witnessed something today that I've not seen before. A coal tit has been coming to the sunflower heart feeder constantly all day. I suspected it was hoarding the seeds and kept an eye on it as it left each time.
Sure enough, it was hiding the seeds in all sorts of nooks and crannies, such as tiny gaps in the fence, cracks in the back of a wooden bench and in the bark of the birch tree. I had read of tits doing this, so was not too surprised, but pleased to see it.
It then did something I didn't expect. It started burying them in the lawn. It must have spent an hour doing this. I lost count at twenty seeds.
I read that they can remember where they hid the seeds for several weeks, but how on earth would it find tiny seeds buried in the lawn?
Anyone else witnessed this?

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Coal Tits are well-known for their ability to store food and can be seen taking seeds away from a feeding station to cache for use at a later date. This behaviour, coupled with the fact that they can feed on the undersides of snow-covered conifer branches, enables them to survive severe winter weather more readily than either Blue Tits or Great Tits. Food caching usually occurs between June and December, with a peak in October, but there have been observations which indicate that Coal Tits may also store food in April during the run-up to egg-laying – a period when additional food resources may be particularly important.

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