Spotted Nutcracker
Encyclopedia
The Spotted Nutcracker, Eurasian Nutcracker, or just Nutcracker, (Nucifraga caryocatactes) is a passerine
bird
slightly larger than the Eurasian Jay
. It has a much larger bill and a slimmer looking head without any crest. The feathering over its body is predominantly a chocolate brown with distinct white spots and streaks. The wings and upper tail are virtually black with a greenish-blue gloss. It is one of two species of nutcracker
, the other, Clark's Nutcracker
(Nucifraga columbiana), replacing it in western North America
.
in his 18th century work, Systema Naturae
, and it still bears its original name of Nucifraga caryocatactes. The scientific name is a reduplication
, with Nucifraga based on Latin
: nucis nut + frangere to shatter, and caryocatactes based on Greek
: karuon nut + kataseio to shatter. The common English name nutcracker first appears in 1738 in a translation of a German travel guide, where it is a calque on the German name Nußknacker, as the bird was not recorded in England until 1753. Other Germanic languages have etymologically related names: Danish
: Nøddekrige; Dutch
: Notenkraker; Norwegian
: Nøttekråke; Swedish
: Nötkråka.
The Spotted Nutcracker is a dark brown, broad-winged, short-tailed corvid. Body plumage is mid to dark chocolate brown, heavily spotted with white on face, neck, mantle and underparts. It has a large white loral spot, a white eye-ring, blackish brown cap extending onto the nape, dark blackish wings with a greenish-blue gloss, all white vent, and dark tail with white corners above and a white terminal band on the undertail. In flight, broad wings, white vent and short tail are noticeable; the flight undulating. The black bill is slender and rather long, sharply pointed, and varies in size amongst races. The iris, legs and feet are black.
Nutcrackers range from 32–38 cm in length (from tip of beak to tip of tail) and have a wingspan ranging from 49–53 cm.
The voice is similar to that of the Eurasian Jay
and is loud and harsh. It is described as kraak-kraak-kraak-kraak.
The most important food resources for this species are the seeds (pine nut
s) of various Pine
s (Pinus sp.), principally the cold-climate (far northern and high altitude) species of white pine
(Pinus subgenus Strobus) with large seeds: P. armandii
, P. cembra
, P. koraiensis
, P. parviflora
, P. peuce
, P. pumila
, P. sibirica
and P. wallichiana
, and also the two lacebark pines in subgenus Ducampopinus, P. bungeana and P. gerardiana
. In some regions, where none of these pines occur, the seeds of Spruce
(Picea sp.) and Hazel
nuts (Corylus sp.) form an important part of the diet too. The forms that take Hazel nuts have thicker bills for cracking their hard shells, with a special ridge on the inside of the bill edge near the base. If the shell is too hard, it holds the nut between its feet and hacks at it with its bill like a chisel.
Surplus seed is always stored for later use and it is this species that is responsible for the sowing of new trees of their favoured pines, including the re-establishment of the Swiss Pine
(Pinus cembra) over large areas in the Alps of central Europe formerly cleared by man.
Various insect
s are also taken, and also small birds, their eggs and nestlings, small rodents and carrion
such as roadkills. It digs out bumble bee and wasp
nests avidly to get at the grubs.
right across northern Europe
, Siberia
and to eastern Asia
, including Japan
, inhabiting the huge taiga
conifer forests in the north.
Three further disjunct populations occur in mountain conifer forests further south, one centered on the mountain
s of central and southeast Europe (the Alps
, the Carpathians
and the Balkan Peninsula mountains); another in the western Himalaya; and the third in western China
seaboard and separated from the northern population by a relatively small gap in the north centre of China. See subspecies list above for race distributions. Some of the populations can be separated on bill size.
This species has a large range, extending over 10,000,000 km² globally. It also has a large global population, with an estimate of between 800,000-1,700,000 individuals in Europe.
Spotted Nutcrackers are not migratory
, but will erupt out of range when a cone crop failure leaves them short of a food supply, the thin-billed eastern race macrorhynchos being the more likely to do this. Britain records about 8 vagrants per year, but in 1968 over 300 Nutcrackers visited Britain as part of a larger irruption into western Europe, probably due to a spell of early cold weather in Siberia.
Passerine
A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...
bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
slightly larger than the Eurasian Jay
Eurasian Jay
The Eurasian Jay is a species of bird occurring over a vast region from Western Europe and north-west Africa to the Indian Subcontinent and further to the eastern seaboard of Asia and down into south-east Asia...
. It has a much larger bill and a slimmer looking head without any crest. The feathering over its body is predominantly a chocolate brown with distinct white spots and streaks. The wings and upper tail are virtually black with a greenish-blue gloss. It is one of two species of nutcracker
Nutcracker (bird)
The nutcrackers are a genus of two species of passerine bird, in the family Corvidae, related to the jays and crows. One, the Spotted Nutcracker , occurs in Europe and Asia, the other, Clark's Nutcracker , in western North America.The most important food resources for both these species are the...
, the other, Clark's Nutcracker
Clark's Nutcracker
Clark's Nutcracker , sometimes referred to as Clark's Crow or Woodpecker Crow, is a passerine bird in the family Corvidae. It is slightly smaller than its Eurasian relative the Spotted Nutcracker . It is ashy-grey all over except for the black-and-white wings and central tail feathers...
(Nucifraga columbiana), replacing it in western North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
.
Taxonomy
The Nutcracker was one of the many species originally described by LinnaeusCarolus Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus , also known after his ennoblement as , was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology...
in his 18th century work, Systema Naturae
Systema Naturae
The book was one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carolus Linnaeus. The first edition was published in 1735...
, and it still bears its original name of Nucifraga caryocatactes. The scientific name is a reduplication
Reduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
, with Nucifraga based on Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
: nucis nut + frangere to shatter, and caryocatactes based on Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
: karuon nut + kataseio to shatter. The common English name nutcracker first appears in 1738 in a translation of a German travel guide, where it is a calque on the German name Nußknacker, as the bird was not recorded in England until 1753. Other Germanic languages have etymologically related names: Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
: Nøddekrige; Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: Notenkraker; Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
: Nøttekråke; Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
: Nötkråka.
Subspecies
There are ten recognised subspecies- nominate caryocatactes (Linnaeus, 1785) Scandinavia to n and e Europe; Caucasus and n Kazakhstan; winters to s Russia;
- macrorhynchos (Brehm, 1823) n and ne Asia; irruptions to n Iran, Korea and n China; vagrant Turkey
- rothschildi (Hartert, 1903) Tian ShanTian ShanThe Tian Shan , also spelled Tien Shan, is a large mountain system located in Central Asia. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Victory Peak , ....
and Dzungarian AlatauDzungarian AlatauThe Dzungarian Alatau is a mountain range that lies on the boundary of Xinjiang region of China and Kazakhstan. The range is named after Dzungaria. Length: cca...
mountains, Kazakhstan and China; - japonica (Hartert, 1897) central and s Kuril Islands, Hokkaido, Honshū and Hondo, Japan;
- owstoni (Ingram, 1910) Taiwan;
- interdicta (Kleinschmidt and WeigoldHugo WeigoldMax Hugo Weigold was a German zoologist and a pioneer bird bander who established the Heligoland Bird Observatory, one of the world’s first.Weigold was born in Dresden. He studied natural sciences and geography in Jena and Leipzig...
, 1922) mountains of n China (LiaoningLiaoning' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the northeast of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "辽" , a name taken from the Liao River that flows through the province. "Níng" means "peace"...
); - multipunctata (Gould, 1849) Pakistan and nw India;
- hemispila (Vigors, 1831) Himalayas (w Nepal to s Kashmir);
- macella (Thayer and Bangs, 1909) e Himalayas to s Tibet, w Nepal, n Myanmar and sw China;
- yunnanensis (Ingram 1910) se China (YunnanYunnanYunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
).
Description
Nutcrackers range from 32–38 cm in length (from tip of beak to tip of tail) and have a wingspan ranging from 49–53 cm.
The voice is similar to that of the Eurasian Jay
Eurasian Jay
The Eurasian Jay is a species of bird occurring over a vast region from Western Europe and north-west Africa to the Indian Subcontinent and further to the eastern seaboard of Asia and down into south-east Asia...
and is loud and harsh. It is described as kraak-kraak-kraak-kraak.
Feeding
Pine nut
Pine nuts are the edible seeds of pines . About 20 species of pine produce seeds large enough to be worth harvesting; in other pines the seeds are also edible, but are too small to be of great value as a human food....
s) of various Pine
Pine
Pines are trees in the genus Pinus ,in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Etymology:...
s (Pinus sp.), principally the cold-climate (far northern and high altitude) species of white pine
Pinus classification
There are three main subgenera of Pinus, the subgenus Strobus , the subgenus Ducampopinus , and the subgenus Pinus...
(Pinus subgenus Strobus) with large seeds: P. armandii
Chinese White Pine
The Chinese White Pine is a species of pine native to China, occurring from southern Shanxi west to southern Gansu and south to Yunnan, with outlying populations in Anhui and Taiwan; it also extends a short distance into northern Myanmar. It grows at 1,000-3,300 m altitude, with the lower...
, P. cembra
Swiss Pine
The Swiss Pine or Arolla Pine, Pinus cembra, is a species of pine tree that occurs in the Alps and Carpathian Mountains of central Europe, in Poland , Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania. It typically grows at to altitude. It often reaches the...
, P. koraiensis
Korean Pine
The tree species Pinus koraiensis is commonly called Korean Pine. It is native to eastern Asia, Korea, Manchuria, far eastern Russia, and central Japan. In the north of its range, it grows at moderate altitudes, typically to , whereas further south, it is a mountain tree, growing at to altitude...
, P. parviflora
Japanese White Pine
The Japanese White Pine is a pine in the white pine group, Pinus subgenus Strobus, native to Japan. It is also known as the Japanese Five Needle Pine ....
, P. peuce
Macedonian Pine
Pinus peuce is a species of pine native to the mountains of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, the extreme southwest of Serbia, and the extreme north of Greece, growing typically at 1,000-2,200 m altitude. It often reaches the alpine tree line in this area...
, P. pumila
Siberian Dwarf Pine
Pinus pumila is a native to northeastern Asia, including the islands of Japan. This shrubby pine ranges from 1–3 m in height, exceptionally up to 5 m, but may have individual branches that extend farther along the ground in length...
, P. sibirica
Siberian Pine
The Siberian Pine, Pinus sibirica, in the family Pinaceae is a species of pine tree that occurs in Siberia from 58°E in the Ural Mountains east to 126°E in the Stanovoy Range in southern Sakha Republic, and from Igarka at 68°N in the lower Yenisei valley, south to 45°N in central...
and P. wallichiana
Blue Pine
Pinus wallichiana is a pine native to the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountains, from eastern Afghanistan east across northern Pakistan and India to Yunnan in southwest China. It grows at high altitudes in mountain valleys at altitudes of 1800–4300 m , and is a tree from 30–50 m in height...
, and also the two lacebark pines in subgenus Ducampopinus, P. bungeana and P. gerardiana
Chilgoza Pine
Pinus gerardiana, known as the Chilgoza Pine, 'noosa', or 'neoza', is a pine native to the northwestern Himalaya in eastern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwest India, growing at elevations between 1800–3350 m...
. In some regions, where none of these pines occur, the seeds of Spruce
Spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea , a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth. Spruces are large trees, from tall when mature, and can be distinguished by their whorled branches and conical...
(Picea sp.) and Hazel
Hazel
The hazels are a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate northern hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae, though some botanists split the hazels into a separate family Corylaceae.They have simple, rounded leaves with double-serrate margins...
nuts (Corylus sp.) form an important part of the diet too. The forms that take Hazel nuts have thicker bills for cracking their hard shells, with a special ridge on the inside of the bill edge near the base. If the shell is too hard, it holds the nut between its feet and hacks at it with its bill like a chisel.
Surplus seed is always stored for later use and it is this species that is responsible for the sowing of new trees of their favoured pines, including the re-establishment of the Swiss Pine
Swiss Pine
The Swiss Pine or Arolla Pine, Pinus cembra, is a species of pine tree that occurs in the Alps and Carpathian Mountains of central Europe, in Poland , Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania. It typically grows at to altitude. It often reaches the...
(Pinus cembra) over large areas in the Alps of central Europe formerly cleared by man.
Various insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s are also taken, and also small birds, their eggs and nestlings, small rodents and carrion
Carrion
Carrion refers to the carcass of a dead animal. Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion-eaters include vultures, hawks, eagles, hyenas, Virginia Opossum, Tasmanian Devils, coyotes, Komodo dragons, and burying beetles...
such as roadkills. It digs out bumble bee and wasp
Wasp
The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...
nests avidly to get at the grubs.
Breeding
Nesting is always early in this species across its whole range, so as to make the best use of pine nuts stored the previous autumn. The nest is usually built high in a conifer (sometimes broadleaved trees are used) and usually on the sunny side. There are normally 2-4 eggs laid and incubated for 18 days. Both sexes feed the young which are usually fledged by about 23 days and stay with their parents for many months, following them to learn the food storage techniques essential for survival in their harsh environment.Distribution
The Spotted Nutcracker has an extensive range forming a broad swathe east-west from ScandinaviaScandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
right across northern Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
and to eastern Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, including Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, inhabiting the huge taiga
Taiga
Taiga , also known as the boreal forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests.Taiga is the world's largest terrestrial biome. In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States and is known as the Northwoods...
conifer forests in the north.
Three further disjunct populations occur in mountain conifer forests further south, one centered on the mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
s of central and southeast Europe (the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
, the Carpathians
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
and the Balkan Peninsula mountains); another in the western Himalaya; and the third in western China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
seaboard and separated from the northern population by a relatively small gap in the north centre of China. See subspecies list above for race distributions. Some of the populations can be separated on bill size.
This species has a large range, extending over 10,000,000 km² globally. It also has a large global population, with an estimate of between 800,000-1,700,000 individuals in Europe.
Spotted Nutcrackers are not migratory
Bird migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...
, but will erupt out of range when a cone crop failure leaves them short of a food supply, the thin-billed eastern race macrorhynchos being the more likely to do this. Britain records about 8 vagrants per year, but in 1968 over 300 Nutcrackers visited Britain as part of a larger irruption into western Europe, probably due to a spell of early cold weather in Siberia.