Spotted Nutcracker a Bogey Bird - at last!!!
05th July 2019
If there is one bird that has eluded us on our travels it is the Spotted Nutcracker, we frustratingly missed one in Poland and since then it has been a bird we have wanted to see. We outlined this to our guide Vlado, (short for Vladimir), and he took us to a site in the Vitosha mountains above Sofia to try and locate these enigmatic birds. Enigmatic because in winter when there are irruptions, albeit infrequently, of the Macrorhynchos - (Siberian race) into Europe, they can be very tame, but in summer the resident Caryocatactes race are not so confiding - therein laid the problem, it was mid – June!!
However, after some searching we could hear their rasping calls, similar but exaggerated and much louder than our Jay. We waited patiently until we could see a pair low down in a Norway spruce and at last a Spotted Nutcracker in front of my lens, what a great feeling!!
However, after some searching we could hear their rasping calls, similar but exaggerated and much louder than our Jay. We waited patiently until we could see a pair low down in a Norway spruce and at last a Spotted Nutcracker in front of my lens, what a great feeling!!