Hazelnuts, when do you pick, and how do you store 'em?

Hazelnuts
I know what te books say, pick 'em when they start to change colour.

But, that's a fortnight away.  Instead, here is what normally happens.  We carefully watch our nuts get fat and test a few each day to see how the nuts are tasting.   We say to each other, if the weather keeps on like this, we will get a hearty nut harvest in about a week.

And by morning, it seems like there is about 10% fewer nuts.  Nothing on the ground.

And within 24 hours, all the remaining nuts will be gone.  Green, no shells, not evidence.   Just gone.

So someone thinks they are ripe.

Today.

A whole bunch are gone from yesterday. 8 of a dozen trees completely stripped of nuts!

So I'm gathering green nuts and they taste pleasant, they aren't ripe.

Not sure how to mature them yet,  just came in for a cuppa tea and to start off this conversation.   For those of you with nut expierence, when do you harvest and what do you do with them to help them last to Christmas feast?

I have no idea how to pick them for storing, but I suggest the most likely harvester is a squirrel, but recently, I've had evidence of rats climbing trees to harvest also.

This definitely needs more research in the Pacific North Wet, as one year when I thought I was picking them properly, when I dried and then tried to open them late in the fall, they were all empty.

It's always a different harvester for us.

Some years squirls, but they tend to take a week or three to eat this many nuts.  They always sort of hover in the background and a good way to tell when the nuts are ready.

Often it's crows.  We never get crows here, but once a year, about 3 or 4 am, for an hour, and all the nuts are gone.

Sometimes it's ravens, raccoons, and other harvesters.  

Last year, we picked some when the squirl started, they were all empty come Christmas.  It was very sad.