2025 Volume 74 Issue 1 Pages 79-87
The Spotted Nutcracker Nucifraga caryocatactes feeds on and hoards the seeds of trees in the genus Pinus. Although its hoarding behavior is easy to observe in the open alpine zone, its main habitat is the dense subalpine zone where their behavior has not been studied in detail. In this study, we surveyed the species' feeding and hoarding behavior to better understand its preferred hoarding locations in the subalpine zone. We focused on the seeds steal by competing species and the effects of snow cover. Our results show that the Spotted Nutcracker hoards seeds in areas of bare earth, in patchy plant communities and forests, with a high hoarding tendency in forest in September and in patchy plant communities in October and November. Nutcrackers did not cache seeds randomly, but rather in locations that were less susceptible to seed theft by competitors and less susceptible to snow accumulation.
