Hazelnuts - how to store?

[Ali]

I was wandering around the bottom of the garden yesterday and could hear a tap tap tap sound, akin to a woodpecker but much quieter and smaller sounding....

I followed the sound to the cherry tree and up in the boughs there was a little bird tapping away at something, then it promptly chucked its toy out of the tree.

Landing on the floor beside me was an empty hazenut, little bird had made precision drill holes and emptied the contents.

I have a couple of small hazelnut trees at the bottom of the veggie garden, one is more of a cultivated hazelnut in that the nuts are larger than found naturally, on inspection of the empty hazelnut it had come from that tree.

Normally I'd not have expected to harvest nuts till around September, but these are perfectly formed, green, sweet and crunchy.

I feel that if I don't pick them soon little bird is going to, being as I do feed the birds in the winter I feel picking my own nuts is a trade off with the food I provide when they really really need it

Couple of questions

What would the bird be? Couldnt get a really good look at it but saw a longer pointy beak, it was small, about sparrer sizeish.

If I pick these green hazelnuts now how, and, can I store them to prevent them going mouldy?

TVM

[ianh]

Possibly a nuthatch - they have really strong beaks and eat hazelnuts. They are one of my favourite birds - they won't come to the birdtable in the front but will eat sunflower seeds if I put the feeder up a distance away from the house and high in a tree. I actually have a pair that nests in the orchard - one reason for letting it go a bit wild (well that's my story).

www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/n/nuthatch/index.aspx

They won't take many nuts (the red squirrels are the culprits round here) - mine aren't ready for picking yet but they do mature early. Once the shells are hard they store forever- I've still got some in a fruit-bowl from last year. Must go and check the trees I planted round the field - got about 20.

What is TVM?

[Ali]

TVM - ta very much

I wondered if it was a Nuthatch but it was hard to see against the brightness of the sky, I hope it is We're getting a much larger variety of birds now that the garden has established.

The shells have formed - needed a nut cracker. Guess I should rack them out somewhere dry til they're dried... ?

[Madame Moorhen]

Put them in your greenhouse Ali. I put my walnuts on newspaper on the windowsills here and hope for sun as that's the only thing which dries them out enough to stop them going mouldy.

I have hazelnuts on my trees here for the first time but usually the red squirrels have them well before they are ripe.

I wouldn't have thought they would be mature enough yet in mid July - unless you have tried one already? Mine are just pale green.