Red-breasted Nuthatch

Order: Passeriformes

Family: Sittidae

Genus: Sitta

Species: canadensis

**Audio Comming Soon**

Description

  • Length: 4.5"
  • Wing span: 8.5"
  • Weight: 0.35oz (10 grams)
  • A small, compact bird with a sharp expression accentuated by its long, pointed bill
  • Blue-gray birds with strongly patterned heads, black cap and stripe through the eye broken up by a white stripe over the eye
  • Black or gray cap and neck frame the face and make it look like this bird is wearing a hood
  • The underparts are rich rusty-cinnamon, paler in females

 

Factoids:

  • An intense bundle of energy at your feeder, Red-breasted Nuthatches are tiny, active birds of north woods and western mountains. These long-billed, short-tailed songbirds travel through tree canopies with chickadees, kinglets, and woodpeckers but stick to tree trunks and branches, where they search bark furrows for hidden insects. Their excitable yank-yank calls sound like tiny tin horns being honked in the treetops
  • The Red-breasted Nuthatch collects resin globules from coniferous trees and plasters them around the entrance of its nest hole. It may carry the resin in its bill or on pieces of bark that it uses as an applicator. The male puts the resin primarily around the outside of the hole while the female puts it around the inside. The resin may help to keep out predators or competitors. The nuthatch avoids the resin by diving directly through the hole
  • During nest building, the Red-breasted Nuthatch is aggressive, chasing away other hole-nesting birds such as the House Wren, White-breasted Nuthatch, and Downy Woodpecker. A particularly feisty nuthatch may go after Yellow-rumped Warblers, House Finches, Violet-Green Swallows, and Cordilleran Flycatchers
  • Red-breasted Nuthatches migrate southward earlier than many irruptive species. They may begin in early July and may reach their southernmost point by September or October
  • Red-breasted Nuthatches sometimes steal nest-lining material from the nests of other birds, including Pygmy Nuthatches and Mountain Chickadees
  • The oldest known Red-breasted Nuthatch was 7 years, 6 months old

 

All photographs and audio clips are ©Jamie Mullin 2006

Sources: Cornell Lab of Ornithology & The Sibley Guide to Birds.

July 21st, 2007 #174