Birdwatching - 3041 🐦

🦉 The spotted nutcracker, Eurasian nutcracker, or just nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes macrorhynchos)

• Nucifraga Latin: nux - walnut, frangere - to smash, crush
• caryocatactes Greek: karyon - walnut, katagnumi - crush
• macrorhynchos Greek: macros large, long, rhynkhos beak

This bird immediately catches the eye - large, with a powerful beak and a rather confident look. Its plumage is mainly brownish-brown, with lighter stripes on the head and wings. The voice is loud, clear, almost metallic - and can be heard hundreds of meters away. These birds never hide: they make noise, scream, argue with each other and often look out from behind a tree trunk, as if checking who is nearby.

These birds live in cedar and pine forests, especially where there are a lot of nuts. But if the harvest in the forest is poor, they can even fly to city parks or summer cottages, where they hope to find food. In winter, they do not fly far - they only move to where they can have a snack.

Their ability to hide nuts in the fall is especially surprising. Each cedar harvest for them is like a supply of food for the whole winter and spring. And they do not just hide, but think through the location: one nut under moss, the second - in a crack in the bark, the third - under a stone.