Stocking up for winter

At this time of year jays are very common in the garden.  From September I can hear them screeching in the tops of the oaks, where I presume they are collecting acorns.  By November many of the acorns have fallen and the jays collect them from the ground.  This one was picking them up and burying them in the lawn, only a few metres from where it found them.

Jays bury acorns to store them for the winter and this process is thought to be the main one by which the oak spreads its seeds.  Oaks don't usually regenerate in established woodland as they are out-competed by other faster growing trees.  Jays prefer to bury their treasure in more open settings such as scrub or grassland.  It has been estimated that a jay may store as many as 5000 acorns in a season and may travel more than a mile to bury them.  It will remember the position of most of them and recover many of them but those that are missed have the opportunity of growing into oak trees.