700 pounds of nuts found in CA vacation rental from acorn woodpecker

Woodpeckers stacked over 700 pounds of acorns 20 to 25 feet high in a California home’s chimney.

Santa Rosa exterminator Nick Castro made the discovery during a December vacation rental inspection for mealworms in Glen Ellen, California, according to the Press Democrat. 

When Castro cut a hole in a bedroom wall, 700 pounds of acorns came rushing out. 

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Castro, owner of Nick’s Extreme Pest Control, told the outlet. “The more acorns I pulled out from the wall, the more there were. It felt like it wasn’t going to end.”

A pair of acorn woodpeckers, known for hoarding large amounts of acorns, had pecked holes in the two-story home’s chimney stack, Castro told the Press Democrat.

He estimated the woodpeckers were adding to the stockpile for two to five years. 

When woodpeckers stashed acorns behind the house’s trim and destroyed its wood siding, the prior owners wrapped the house in vinyl, which ultimately failed to prevent these advantageous woodpeckers from claiming the house for free oak nuts storage. 

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Castro’s crew filled eight garbage bags full of the birds’ hoard. Because the acorns were covered by fiberglass and rat droppings, the bags were so heavy that Castro’s crew could barely pick them up, he quipped.