Feeding signs on cherry stones
Starlings and thrushes do not eat cherry stones, only the fruit itself. The unchewed stones may stay attached to the stem, or lie in heaps at the foot of the tree.
Mice routinely chew holes in cherry stones to reach the soft contents; they gnaw holes in the stones the same way they do in hazelnuts.
Hawfinches do not eat the flesh of the fruit, but instead empty the stone after cracking it with their powerful beak. They split the stones in two, leaving no beak marks on the shell. You can find many split cherry stones under a tree. Hawfinches handle the stones of a range of fruit trees in the same fashion.
A Fieldfare eating cherries. AK.
Cherry stone with Bank Vole feeding signs. AK.
Hawfinch. MH.
