"Fed on seeds of pine..."

"I saw today a species of woodpecker which fed on seeds of pine. its beak and tail were white, its wings were black, and everyother part a dark brown. it is about the size of a robin." -- Meriwether Lewis Many travelers have witnessed the Clark's nutcracker perched near a Rocky Mountain campground, waiting for spilled trail mix. The more notable aspect of Lewis's observation, however, is not the bird but the interaction between bird and whitebark pine. This intertwined natural history has broad implications for the future of the West.

Taking a closer look

Whitebark pines grow in the high mountains from British Columbia to California and Wyoming. This lovely tree, with its rounded shape and white-grooved needles in bunches of five, takes root on windblown alpine slopes. The broad crown catches snow and helps build up the high-altitude snowpack. Rather than opening to release their seeds, the cones drop to the ground and the seeds fall out as the cones fall apart.

The whitebark pine plays a central role in the alpine ecosystem of the Rocky Mountains. The rich pine nuts provide food for the nutcrackers that cache many of the seeds for later. The ones the birds don't find germinate, creating new trees. Red squirrels also revel in the bounty, tucking cones and seeds into pantries, called middens, waiting for the cold. Grizzlies, attracted by the calls of Clark's nutcrackers, raid the squirrel middens in time to fatten up for the winter.