Acorns Pour Out of Wall After Homeowner Sees Woodpecker Drilling Holes on His House in California

After noticing a woodpecker drilling holes in the side of his house, a California homeowner discovered his wall was covered in acorns.

Despite operating Nick's Extreme Pest Control in California for more than 20 years, Nick Castro has never before come across anything quite like this.

Woodpecker Drills Holes, Stores Acorns

Castro was recently called to a home where a neighborhood woodpecker had caused damage. The bird started drilling holes in the siding of the house to store food for later consumption.

In this instance, the main food source was acorns. But the acorns weren't staying put, which was unfortunate for everyone involved. Rather, they were crashing into the bare spaces between the walls.

Castro anticipated finding some acorns as he made a hole in the wall to dig them out, but he was unprepared for the flood of acorns that burst through the caller's wall in a steady stream.

Castro said that the acorns simply kept coming, nonstop. The acorns, he continued, were only believed to be about a fourth of the way up the wall. However, as it turned out, the acorns piled so high that they reached the house's attic.

Acorns continued to flow as Castro made more holes around the house. Amazingly, 700 pounds or so of acorns exploded out, enough to fill eight large garbage bags. Castro claimed to have never seen anything like that.

No Euthanasia

The policy at Nick's Extreme Pest Control is that all animals are treated humanely and are never put to death, and this situation was no exception.

They simply patched the holes the woodpecker had made on the house exterior and left the woodpecker alone. The homeowner's addition of a few panels of new vinyl siding ought to be sufficient to persuade her to look for a new location to store her food.

In the end, the bird will benefit from that the most. After all, all of her effort in searching for acorns had been in vain, The Dodo reports.

Woodpeckers in California

According to Bird Feeder Hub, over 300 different species of woodpeckers have been identified, and about 22 of these species are found in the United States. Of those 22, at least 15 different species of woodpecker can be found in California. California now has more woodpecker species than the majority of other states in the nation.

Of the 15, one species is known to hoard acorns, the acorn woodpecker.

All About Birds says that the very unusual Acorn Woodpecker breeds cooperatively, lives in large groups, and hoards acorns. Acorns are gathered in large quantities by the group, which then jams them into holes drilled in a tree trunk or, sometimes, a telephone pole. Additionally, acorn woodpeckers spend a lot of time catching insects as they fly.

In the Southwest and West Coast, these woodpeckers can be found in oak as well as mixed oak-evergreen forests standing on slopes and mountains. They tolerate people and can be found in towns where they can find acorns and places where they can be stored.