A Santa Rosa, California-based pest control company made an incredible discovery during a routine house call.
Upon cutting into the wall of a residential home, the company was met with a flood of acorns spilling out, weighing 700 pounds in total.
The culprit behind this hoard was none other than a woodpecker, who had been stashing the acorns inside the walls of the home.
According to Nick Castro, the owner of Nick’s Extreme Pest Control, the exterior of the home was completely destroyed, covered in clear woodpecker holes.
“The bird put acorns through the chimney stack after making 100s of holes in wood siding surrounding it,” Castro wrote. “He came through attic ventilation port holes.”
The bird had put acorns through the chimney stack and stored them all over the siding and trim of the house.
Castro claims that the bird was even seen stuffing more acorns in holes while they were removing the existing nuts. The hoard of acorns is estimated to be 2 to 5 years old.
“Bird was a bit of a hoarder,” he wrote. “Never came across something like this.”
The home’s residents noticed something was wrong when they saw little worms coming out of the wall that looked like maggots. These turned out to be mealworms, which were feasting on the hoard of acorns.
Removing the acorns took three employees a full day and the nuts had to be disposed of because they were covered in bits of fiberglass from the destroyed insulation.
Castro said that he had never come across such a hoard in his career and that it was a one-in-a-million chance to find something so significant.
“On a scale from one to 10, this is a 10. It’s a one-in-a-million chance to find something this significant,” Castro said, according to Global News. “I expected to find a few handfuls, nothing like this.”
He believes the hoard was stashed by a pair of acorn woodpeckers, who are appropriately named for their hoarding habits.
While the woodpecker may have thought it was simply preparing for the future, it ended up causing quite an inconvenience for the homeowners and pest control company.
Nevertheless, this unexpected find has sparked amazement of the animal kingdom and is a testament to the incredible and sometimes bizarre behavior of birds.