Named by William Clark in 1805 the Clark’s Nutcracker is found throughout our region. I took these pics yesterday from our dining room patio door. They love peanuts & of course a variety of pine nuts found all around us. They are closely associated with pines that produce large seeds, such as whitebark pine and limber pine, but are also found in other montane evergreen forests from about 3,000 to more than 11,000 feet in the West. High in the mountains of the West, gray-and-black Clark’s Nutcrackers swoop among wizened pine trees, flashing white in the tail and wing. They use their dagger-like bills to rip into pine cones and pull out large seeds, which they stash in a pouch under their tongue and then carry away to bury for the winter. Each birds buries tens of thousands of seeds each summer and remembers the locations of most of them. Seeds they don’t retrieve play a crucial role in growing new pine forests. See more about William Clarks discovery of this bird in 1805. lewis-clark.org/article/559
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 16:47:15 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015