A
viral video shows technicians clearing a huge cache of acorns from a
transmission tower.
By Brian
Clark Howard, National Geographic
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER
13, 2015
Squirrels aren’t the only animals that store acorns for winter.
Some birds do it, too. And one species in California disrupted a
telecommunications network with its storage habits.
The
birds stashed their acorns in a wireless antenna in Central California. A video
that’s going viral this week shows technicians opening a compartment on the
antenna and unleashing a flood of acorns. In all, an estimated 300 pounds (35
to 50 gallons) of nuts fell out.
Walter
Koenig, a senior scientist
with the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, says he’s pretty sure the acorn
woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus)
was behind the cache.
“They’re
pretty famous for finding places to hide acorns,” says Koenig, who has studied
the bird for years. Koenig says he once saw a traffic signal stuffed so full of
acorns that it was unreadable.
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