Abstract:The phenomenon of stealing food is very common in hoarding food animals. The hoarding food can be stolen by intraspecific or interspecific competitors, which are one of the main reasons for the loss of hoarding foods. Meanwhile, it is the main driving factor for the evolution of selection on the food storage behavior. Consequently, the study on the hoarding food strategy which avoid being stolen would be useful in uncovering the underlying mechanisms for the evolution of the hoarding food behavior,and protecting the hoarding food birds. The Varied Tit has obvious behavior of hoarding food at autumn, and the storage mode is scattered. During October 2014, at liaoning province, dalian, fairy cave national nature reserve (E 122°53′24″ ~ 123°03′30″,N 39°54′00″ ~ 40°03′00″), in the experimental zone, we chose seven appropriate respectively separated greater than 1000 m areas. After that, we artificially placed Korean pine seeds, guided and set up seven fixed varied tits feeding points. Then, with mist net method, we traped varied tits at the fixed feeding points, and released these bird after bird banding and taking the blood. As shown in table 1. In this study, we artificially served the food in seven places and set the food source in the center(The fixed varied tits feeding points). According to the distance from the cache site to the food source, the high pilferage risk area, medium pilferage risk area and low pilferage risk area was divided to study the change of hoarding food ratio of varied tits, according to the presence or absence of potential pilferers. We took into account the time and energy’s costs and profits of feeding and storage process to examine the strategy of varied tits in avoiding being stolen food storage strategy. The results showed that the trend in hoarding food strategy of varied tits was roughly similar whether there was potential thieves prey or not. Foods were mainly stored in the medium pilferage risk area, with the high pilferage risk area and low pilferage risk area storage food ratio was relatively low. The presence of interspecific and intraspecific potential pilferers had different and obvious influence on the hoarding food strategy of varied tits. The presence of interspecific and intraspecific potential pilferers decreased the food storage ratio of high pilferage risk area (interspecific potential pilferers:F=3.174, P<0.05;intraspecific potential pilferers:F=90.475, P<0.05)and increased that of low pilferage risk area (interspecific potential pilferers:F=220.440, P<0.05;intraspecific potential pilferers:F=15.651, p<0.05). Furthermore, when there was interspecific potential pilferers, the food storage ratio of medium pilferage risk area would be lower(F=143.749, P<0.05), but if there was intraspecific potential pilferers, the food storage ratio of medium pilferage risk area would not change(F=0.776, P>0.05). This means that the varied tits recognized and prevented from stealing food of interspecific pilferers more than intraspecific potential pilferers. In addition, in the three different situations, the male and the female varied tits’s hoarding food strategies were obviously different. As shown in table 2. When there was no potential pilferers, and there was intraspecific potential pilferers, the male varied tits would took notice and prevented stealing food more than the females(There was no potential pilferers: high pilferage risk area t=4.962, df=16.546, P<0.05; medium pilferage risk area t=-0.89, df=29.255, P>0.05; low pilferage risk area t=-2.166, df=30, p<0.05);( There was intraspecific potential pilferers: high pilferage risk area t=-0.152, df=29, P>0.05 ; medium pilferage risk area t=2.352, df=19.568, P<0.05; low pilferage risk area t=-2.287, df=19.563, P<0.05).While there was interspecific potential pilferers, the results show that no significant difference was observed in the hoarding food strategy of the male and female varied tits.( high pilferage risk area t=1.361, df=29, P>0.05; medium pilferage risk area t=-0.194, df=21.529, P>0.05; low pilferage risk area t=-1.599, df=29, P>0.05).