My new thing at my bird feeding stations is to provide wild birds with whole peanuts in the shell. I've been feeding seed eating birds for a couple, going on to "a few" yikes, decades now and surprisingly enough have never tried peanuts in the shell. I suppose this is because I have always feed shelled peanuts and didn't see the point. But lately I have given it a shot. Why didn't I do this sooner? It's been a lot of fun watching them. First of course came the titmice who went mad for them. They seriously emptied all the peanuts out in an afternoon, madly caching the things all over my yard. Not that I am thrilled with caching but it's what they do. Titmice don't usually cache as much as say nuthatches but I guess they were driven to for this new special food. The shelled peanut feeder was right next to it, but they ignored that for a bit.Then came the chickadees. They made me laugh out loud. One little chickadee tried to fly off with a peanut in the shell and decided it was too heavy, dumped it and went to the shelled nuts. The nuthatches love them, but the blue jays are mad about them. Normally I am not a big blue hay fan, I have difficulties with them attacking songbird nests in summer during nesting season, but in winter I am not so irritated with them. Probably in summer I will discontinue the peanuts in the shell, but in winter, I will supply this food source. If you haven't tried them, give it a shot, even if it is just for the occasional treat.
