The Clark Nutcracker 



was a visitation of Nutcrackers which involved most of the coastal 

 counties from Monterey to the Colorado desert. A specimen now in 

 the M. C. O. collection was taken in Montecito; and another bird spent 

 fully three weeks in Alameda Park, in the heart of Santa Barbara. 



This black-and-white-and-gray "Crow" curiously combines the char- 

 acteristics of Woodpecker and Jay as well. Like the Lewis Woodpecker, 

 he sometimes hawks at passing insects, eats berries from bushes, or 

 alights on the ground to glean grubs, grasshoppers, and black crickets. 

 In the mountains it shares with the Jays of the Perisoreus group the 

 names "meat-bird" and "camp-robber," for nothing that is edible comes 

 amiss to this bird, and instances are on record of its having invaded not 

 only the open-air kitchen, but the tent, as well, in search of "supplies". 

 Like all other members of the Corvidae, Clark's Crow bears a bad reputa- 

 tion among the lesser songsters. One that had been caught sneaking 

 about in the pine-trees just below our Cottonwood Lakes camp, was 

 fiercely set upon by a pair of Western Wood Pewees. The pursuers 

 gave the rascal no rest, but drove the unhappy crow mercilessly from 

 tree to tree, and with a persistence which left no room for doubt that 

 they had real wrongs to avenge. At Mammoth we found them perse- 

 cuting the Leucostictes, and knew of at least one nest being robbed by 

 them. 



Of its more staple food a more northern observer says: "Clark's 

 Crows have, like the Crossbills, to get out the seeds from underneath the 

 scaly coverings constituting the outward side of the fir cone. Nature 

 has not given them crossed mandibles to lever open the scales, but in- 

 stead, feet and claws, that serve the purpose of hands, and a powerful 

 bill like a small crowbar. To use the crowbar to advantage the cone 

 needs steadying, or it would snap at the stem and fall; to accomplish 

 this one foot clasps it, and the powerful claws hold it firmly, whilst the 

 other foot encircling the branch, supports the bird, either back downward, 

 head downward, on its side, or upright like a woodpecker, the long clasping 

 claws being equal to any emergency; the cone thus fixed and a firm hold 

 maintained on the branch, the seeds are gouged out from under the scales. " 



These Nutcrackers are among the earliest and most hardy of nesters. 

 They are practically independent of climate, but are found during the 

 nesting months — March, or even late in February, and early April — only 

 where there is a local abundance of pine (or fir) seeds. They are artfully 

 silent at this season, and the impression prevails that they have "gone 

 to the mountains"; or, if in the mountains already, the presence of a 

 dozen feet of snow serves to allay the oologist's suspicions. 



The nest is a very substantial affair of twigs and bark-strips, heavily 

 lined, as befits a cold season, and placed at any height in a pine or fir 



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