Clark's Nutcracker

This Clark's Nutcracker gave me a chance for a few photos. We don't have these birds in Calgary - you have to go out to the mountains to see them. This one was seen in the town of Canmore, during the annual Banff/Canmore Christmas Bird Count on 15 December 2012.

This bird belongs to the same family as crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, and magpies. They are considered the most intelligent of the birds, and among the most intelligent of all animals - from Wikipedia.

"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." from AllAboutBirds.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark's_Nutcracker

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Clarks_Nutcracker/id