Spotted Nutcracker

Whilst in Davos we visited the Alpine Botanic Gardens (Alpinum Schatzalp). One of the highlights was not a plant though. It was a bird.

Up in one of the pine trees a large dark crow like bird was giving a pine cone what for and extracting pine nuts. We watched it for ages. A closer look revealed the bird was streaked with white and it and its family were quite noisy. They are members of the crow family and the vocalisations reflect that (they sound a bit like Eurasian Jays).

 Spotted Nutcracker.

Because of their habit of storing food it is believed they are responsible for the regeneration of Swiss Pine Pinus cembra over large areas of the Alps that had previously been cleared.