In the taiga there are many interesting animals and birds, many of which are known to most people only by the name of the species. One of them is cedar. This bird lives in dense forests, and therefore even few know about its appearance. Our article will correct this misunderstanding.
In appearance, cedar is very similar to a daw, but its beak is longer and thinner, and the physique is denser. The wings are very short and quite wide, and therefore the flight of this bird does not differ in grace.
Often you can see how she sits motionless on the tops of trees and on long branches. In a word, cedar - a bird - a "homebody", is not adapted to long flights.
In the outward appearance of the feathery, a dark brown color predominates, alternating with white spots that are absent on the upper part of the head. The tip of the tail is decorated with a wide white border. In appearance, it is difficult to distinguish a female from a male: the female is almost the same size, only her color is slightly paler, and white spots are less pronounced.
Its name - “cedar” - the bird justifies in full: in the taiga, it eats almost exclusively cedar nuts, which a well-adapted beak helps to get out of cones. Note that she does not wait for their maturation, but prefers to peck cones at the stage of milk ripeness. But when the nuts ripen, the birds begin to work. They peck selected seeds to the last grain, stuff goitre with nuts, and then hide them in remote corners of the forest.
A valuable product is interested not only in cedar. Birds compete with squirrels, other birds, as well as with hedgehogs and even sables, who are also not averse to tasting fresh nuts!
You need to know that these birds just have a great memory. Sometimes they find their stocks in the middle of winter, digging to them almost through a meter-long layer of dense snow! Nevertheless, they nevertheless forget about a part of the “stash”, and they subsequently give rise to new thickets of cedar.
In general, nutcracker is a bird (photos confirm this) rather fragile, “armed” with only thin legs, and therefore it is necessary to dig out nuts with the help of its long beak. She does this interestingly: moving him in the lateral direction, the bird rakes the snow, gradually getting to the treats.
This activity is potentially dangerous for the bird, since a predator can grab it at any time. And therefore, she does not spend all her time in her snow hole, often jumping to the surface and observing approaches.
However, this does not always help her. Domestic scientists said that fooling a careless bird is not difficult: you just need to carefully approach on skis, from time to time freezing in one place. After approaching the cedar tree, you can catch it only with a hat.
The cedar population largely depends on the size of this bird. Have you ever picked nuts from his cones? If so, then be sure to remember what they have solid and dense plates. Young cedar sprouts break through them is almost impossible. In addition, the cone is heavy, and therefore falls only under the crown of the parent tree. Thus, if these birds do not, cedars may eventually disappear from the forests.
So you have learned about what pine nutry eats and how it does it, as well as how useful the activity of this little bird is!