I witnessed almost exact same behavior with a black-billed magpie in the
Alvord desert about 20 years ago when I was a young ornithology student.
The magpie was using a small twig to poke around in cracks in large dead
sagebrush bark. I bet my professor Steve Herman still has the drawing I
made right after the encounter.

Angela Percival
Olympia, WA
Angela at stillwatersci.com


Message: 6
Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 20:01:08 -0700
From: "B & P Bell" <bellasoc at isomedia.com>
Subject: [Tweeters] Forward of message on Clark's Nutcracker tool use
To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Message-ID: <003101c7d643$f7cc6930$6400a8c0 at MCCOY>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi Tweets

This message is forwarded for Richard Fleming, who is not a member of
Tweeters.

Brian H. Bell

Tool Use by Clark's Nutcracker
Richard S. Fleming and Gayle Rae Garman
The bird inspected the branch on which it was perched and broke-off a
twig about 2 inches long. Aligning the twig with the axis of its bill,
the bird stabbed at and worked the cluster with lateral and vertical
strokes of the twig/tool. After a few seconds the cluster came loose in
the cleft. The bird placed the twig/tool under one of its feet and then
reached out and picked up the lichen cluster. The bird inspected the
lichen cluster, did not find any food item, dropped the cluster, and
flew off. On this day, the Clark's Nutcrackers were gleaning food items
from the lichen clusters and from under the bark of the trees, as well
as hammering the cones of live trees for seeds.