Animals that use crops as a food source must also sustain themselves when the crops are not available, and this period of their annual life cycle can make the use of crops a winning or losing strategy. We monitored two male Barbary macaques from two neighboring groups that had access to the same orchards that bordered Ifrane National Park, Morocco. Cherries were grown commercially in these orchards, with some interspersed walnut trees. Both study individuals (and expectedly their groups) remained in the vicinity of the orchards all winter long. They visited the orchards the most when walnuts were available at the beginning of the study, and the least when cherries were available at the end of the study. This result confirmed the key role of the hired wardens that protected the cherry crop, whereas walnuts were not guarded against macaque raids. Per capita home range sizes were smallest and inter-group overlap was largest when walnuts were available, highlighting the bottom-up control of this system. The movement parameters that underlaid the variation in home range size and composition over the winter (diffusion and home range crossing time) suggested a role for competition between the two groups and with livestock, and a key role for herbaceous forage inside the orchards.