Nucifraga columbiana
Silhouette: Joshua Fowler · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~70% in a week ~90%
Clark's nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana), also known as Clark's crow, is a passerine bird in the family Corvidae, native to the mountains of western North America. The nutcracker is an omnivore, but subsists mainly on pine nuts, burying seeds in the ground in the late summer and fall, and then retrieving them in the winter and spring by memory. The bird was described by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with William Clark first observing it in 1805 along the banks of the Salmon River, a tributary of the Columbia River.
In William Clark's initial description of the bird, he mistakenly described it as a woodpecker, writing "I saw today [a] bird of the woodpecker kind, which fed on pine burrs. Its bill and tail white; the wings black; every other part of a light brown, and about the size of a robin."
Clark's nutcracker's scientific name literally means "nutcracker of the Columbia". In 1806, Meriwether Lewis recorded a more detailed description from specimens collected along the Clearwater River in Idaho. A skin collected by the expedition was obtained by the ornithologist Alexander Wilson, who used it to produce an engraving for his American Ornithology work... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yellowstone National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Banff National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 3 | Rocky Mountain National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Grand Teton National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Jasper National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 6 | Yosemite National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Glacier National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 8 | Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 9 | Grand Canyon National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 10 | Zion National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 11 | Olympic National Park | 🇺🇸 United States |
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Clark's Nutcracker sighting in Rocky Mountain National Park on a given day, based on 3,653 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 21st most-seen of the 223 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 70%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
November and December
In those months about 60% of wildlife watchers report a Clark's Nutcracker in Rocky Mountain National Park on a given day, against about 20% in May to July, the lowest months.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Clark's Nutcracker sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
3rd of 11
Of the 11 parks where we can rate Clark's Nutcracker sightings, Rocky Mountain National Park ranks 3rd at about 30%. The best odds are in Yellowstone National Park (United States, about 40%) and Banff National Park (Canada, about 30%).
Same family: Corvidae
The closest relatives of the Clark's Nutcracker that you can see in Rocky Mountain National Park (family Corvidae, Crows, Jays, and Magpies) are Black-billed Magpie (about 70%), American Crow (about 60%) and Steller's Jay (about 60%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Clark's Nutcracker is recorded against all the birds logged in Rocky Mountain National Park (3,653 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
