Some birds store food in hidden places and return to it months later.

The longer version

Caching birds tuck seeds into bark crevices, moss, soil or behind loose bark, often one item per site and thousands of sites in a season. Finding them again depends on spatial memory, and the hippocampus, the brain region that handles spatial information, is larger in caching species than in relatives that store nothing.

Some caches are never recovered, and the forgotten seeds grow, so the birds work as planters for trees such as pines and oaks. Strategy follows perishability: birds storing insects eat them quickly, while seeds keep for months. Birds with damaged spatial memory recover far fewer of their own caches.

Where this entry sits

Here you will find feathered trivia about flight, migration, nests, eggs, and the songs birds sing. Expect short surprising facts on penguins, owls, hummingbirds, and other familiar birds from gardens, forests, wetlands, and distant coastlines. The full list sits on the Birds page, where every entry is listed in order.