The Clark’s Nutcracker is a bird of the high altitude and it rarely comes down to the valley bottom. Found only in the western mountains, even westerners are unlikely to have ever seen it. But, now and then, it comes down. A number of us watched a flock of about two dozen of them for the last week.
Nutcrackers collect thousands of pine seeds and then hide them in caches throughout the fall. They find these provisions again in winter, enabling them to both survive and nest. However, they do not recover all the seeds they have hidden. Indeed, for some high-elevation pines, almost all the trees are planted by residuals from the nutcracker.
During a landing, the Clark’s Nutcracker shows its underside plumage.
The nutcracker collects a Douglas-fir cone from a tree and extracts the seeds.
Here are five of the two dozen in the flock. They may be hiding seeds or retrieving them.
Here a nutcracker has something in its bill which it promptly swallowed.
The Clark’s Nutcracker has a striking topside plumage of grey, black, and white. 
Very good to see a flock….very unusual too.
Beautiful photos. I watched a few of them in a stand of trees up between Kokanee and Kaslo Lakes. First time I’d seen them. Beautiful little birds. I wonder what brought them down to lower elevations.
Maybe they come down to lower country when their preferred food, White bark pine cones, isn’t available ? this year in Idaho’s northern mountains, I didn’t see cones on our WBPs, and noticed the nutcrackers feeding on Lodgepole and ponderosa pines.
So good to learn from you, Alistair! I particularly appreciated your explanation of the Aurora Borealis.
Helen