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Janet Galpin · 24-09-2006, 11:52 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

In article ,
Janet Galpin writes:
|
| I've been wondering what my main rivals are. We don't have squirrels as
| far as I'm aware. However, googling has thrown up the fact that
| pheasants love hazelnuts and I now ealise that I've been slow to catch
| on to the fact that this probably accounts for the loud squawks which
| have been coming from the boundary hedge in the last week or two.
| Presumably birds in the crow family also like hazelnuts.

I didn't know that a pheasant could deal with them, because hazelnuts
have a fairly tough shell. Jays like acorns, and I would guess them.

Spot on. Hearing the same quarrelsome squawking this afternoon, I was
just in time to see an altercation between a jay and a magpie. Only the
second time I've seen a jay in the garden so I was quite excited and
felt tmore cheerful about the loss of my hazelnuts.

| I was also wondering what makes the neat single holes in the side of
| some of the shells and some more googling has established that this is
| probably nut weevil. Where there is a hole there are normally other
| insects inside - wood lice or small millipede-type insects - but I
| presume they could well be opportunists.

How small are the holes? Your latter guess seems likely.

About 1 to 2 mm?

Janet