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Woodpecker Stores 700 Lbs. of Acorns in Walls of California Home: 'Bit of a Hoarder'

Woodpecker Stores 700 Lbs. of Acorns in Walls of California Home: 'Bit of a Hoarder'

Talk about a nutty situation!

A pest control company in Santa Rosa, Calif. got a huge surprise when called to a client's home. Upon investigating the damage in the resident's walls, an avalanche of acorns poured out, having been placed in the cavities by a rogue woodpecker.

"Bird was a bit of a hoarder," Nick Castro of Nick's Extreme Pest Control explained on Facebook. "Filled up about 8 garbage bags full of acorns weighing in about 700 lbs."

He added, "Unreal never came across something like this," and provided a series of eye-popping photos showing off piles and piles of nuts collected and stored by the bird.

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When an astonished commenter asked how the homeowners knew there was something amiss going on in the first place, Castro said that they'd observed "little worms coming out of the wall that looked like maggots," and explained that they were actually a kind of mealworm.

He also gave insight as to the crafty woodpecker's storing technique: "The bird put acorns through the chimney stack after making 100s of holes in wood siding surrounding it."

"He came through attic ventilation port holes," Castro noted.

Greater Spotted Woodpecker
Greater Spotted Woodpecker

Getty

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The piles of acorns went from the home's lower floor all the way up to about 20 feet into the attic, he reported, explaining that there were also acorns stored in the siding and trim and that the exterior of the house was "completely destroyed" with pecked holes.

PEOPLE reached out to the pest control company for further explanation, but did not immediately receive a response.

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"This bird was crazy," Castro wrote. "We actually saw him there when we were there."

The woodpecker, apparently not deterred at being spotted by the exterminators, was "putting more in the holes he created."