Clarks Nutcraker Crater Lake Nick Myatt 08 (4458470688)

Description:

Summary[edit] Description: -Photo by Nick Myatt, Oregon Department of FIsh and Wildlife Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) On his historic expedition with Meriwether Lewis, Captain William Clark, the bird's namesake, first mistook this species for a woodpecker undoubtedly because of its long, sharp beak. However, this most specialized member of the North American Crow family uses this apparatus to pry loose its favored seeds from unrelenting cones of several pines, with which the nutcracker has a symbiotic relationship. The whitebark pine, in particular, is totally reliant on Clark's Nutcrackers for seed dispersal and germination. In Oregon the Clark's Nutcracker is a resident along the crest of the Cascades, usually above 4,000 feet, lower on the east slope, from the Columbia River south to the California border, west into the Siskiyous, and east to the Warner Mountains, northeast throughout the Blue and Wallowa mountains. It is very common at Crater Lake. Date: 8 July 2006, 14:07. Source: Clarks Nutcraker_Crater Lake_Nick Myatt 08. Author: Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife.