Storage begins when whole seeds with hard seed coats are extracted from cones. Whitebark pine seeds stored as early as 15 Aug in Rocky Mtns. and 25 Aug in Sierra Nevada. Clark's Nutcracker with full sublingual pouch, used to transport seeds to cache sites. Drawing by Tony Angell. From Vander Wall and Balda 1977, Tomback 1978a, Hutchins and Lanner 1982, and Vander Wall 1988.
More typical distances are from a few meters to a few kilometers.
Pouch capacity and quantity of seeds stored. Retrieval of seed caches. Information summarized from Tomback 1978a and Vander Wall and Hutchins 1983. Some caches retrieved from communal storage areas at subalpine elevations during winter and spring, but most caches retrieved there in early Jun or early Jul after snow is gone. Places seeds in pouch or eats them, then moves to other caches.