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Volume VIII 
September-October 1906 
Number 5 
An Acorn Store-house of the California Woodpecker 
1)V WALTER K. FISHER 
M OST Californians are familiar with the acorn-hoarding habits of the Cali- 
fornia woodpecker ( Mclctnerpes f. bairdi). During the late fall and winter 
this bird, with praiseworthy industry, stores great quantities of acorns, 
preferably the slender ones of the California live oak ( Onerous agrifolia). Holes 
are drilled into the bark of trees and the acorns are inserted and wedged in so 
tightly as to defy anything but steel. Altho one finds scattered acorns in the bark 
of eucalyptus, in telegraph poles, in fence posts, in the sides of houses, or wedged 
under shingles, the woodpeckers seem to prefer the live oak in the valleys. In 
the mountains conifers are sometimes used. 
The birds show a decided preference for certain trees and use the same tree 
and the same holes year after year, adding new holes as time goes by. In front of 
Dr. David Starr Jordan’s residence at Stanford University, California, is a large 
live oak which is somewhat famous among trees. Its bark is closely studded with 
acorns, even out onto the smaller limbs. On account of its size the tree is difficult 
to photograph. The accompanying illustration, taken last February by Dr. A. K. 
Fisher, shows only a part of the “acorned” surface. As will be seen the acorns 
are closely placed. Some of them have been driven into the ends of old partially 
decayed nuts, which they have telescoped, the old shell enclosing the fresh acorn. 
Only a portion of the acorns are eaten by the woodpeckers, many remaining till 
they decay or are “driven to the wall” by the insertion of a fresh crop. After a 
time the bark partially decays about the old holes, so that the acorns will not fit 
tightly. Such holes, some of which are seen in the illustration, are often abandoned. 
This oak is the finest specimen of an “acorned” tree I have ever seen. I believe 
no photograph of it has heretofore been published. 
Palo Alio , California. 
