The taxa formerly grouped under Spotted Nutcracker are a distinctive corvid of mainly coniferous forests. Group ranges Western Europe to Kamchatka Peninsula and Japan. In China, Southern Nutcracker Nucifraga hemispila macella resident Qin Mountains of southern Shaanxi and northwest Hubei to Sichuan and southeast Tibet and Yunnan and N. h. interdicta southwest Liaoning to Shanxi and Henan. Also N. h. owstoni endemic to Taiwan. Northern Nutcracker N. caryocatactes macrorhynchos is resident Changbai Mountains and Greater Khingan Mountains of Inner Mongolia and Lesser Khingan Mountains in Heilongjiang, and N. c. rothschildi in Tianshan in western Xinjiang. HABITAT & BEHAVIOR Coniferous and mixed coniferous-birch forests, in lowlands and mountains in north, higher altitudes in south. Eats pine nuts, which it hoards for winter. Also takes invertebrates in spring and summer. ID & COMPARISON Distinctive, mid-sized (about as large as a Eurasian Jay), mainly chocolate-brown, broad-winged, short-tailed. Head, mantle, and underparts chocolate-brown with white spotting or streaking (except on cap and nape, which are darker brown). Wings and tail black, with white corners on tail. White vent easily distinguished during undulating flight. Races macrorhynchos and rothschildi heavily spotted, macella, interdicta, and owstoni less so; owstoni has fewer streaks than any other ssp. BARE PARTS Bill slender, black; feet black. VOICE Quiet, especially in winter; in breeding season, distinctive, dry, powerful kraak from atop conifer. — Craig Brelsford
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Daniel Bengtsson served as chief ornithological consultant for Craig Brelsford’s Photographic Field Guide to the Birds of China, from which this species description is drawn.
