Nick Castro, the owner of Nick’s Extreme Pest Control in California, recently encountered a bizarre situation that left him stunned.
Castro was called to a house to deal with a woodpecker that was causing damage to the siding by storing acorns in holes it created. When he cut into the wall to remove the acorns, he was met with a never-ending stream of acorns pouring out.
“They just kept coming and coming, non-stop,” Castro told The Dodo. “Acorns were thought to be only about a quarter of the way up the wall. Turned out, they were piled high up to the attic of the house.”
It was estimated that the woodpecker had stored around 700 pounds of acorns, which filled eight large rubbish bags. The acorns were stored all over the siding and trim and had even been put through the chimney stack after making hundreds of holes in the wood siding surrounding it.
“The bird had completely destroyed the exterior of the house with the holes it had made. Acorns were stored all over siding and trim,” he said.
The bird had also come through the attic ventilation port holes, and the acorns were piled from the lower floor up to the attic. Castro said that the bird was “crazy” and that he had never seen anything like that before.
“Acorns were piled from the lower floor to about 20 feet up into the attic,” Castro said. “I never saw anything like that before.”
At one point, the determined and prepared bird showed up despite the working crews to continue his storage routine. “We actually saw him there when we were there- putting more in the holes he created,” Castro said.
At Nick’s Extreme Pest Control, all animals are handled humanely and never euthanized. This case was no exception, and the woodpecker was left alone. The homeowners simply patched the holes outside the house in an attempt to encourage the bird to find a new place to store its food.
