One More Bird Post

Expert birder also noted that there were a lot of Red-breasted Nuthatches around this year. Easton potentially has two nuthatches. Anyone who has a bird feeder has seen a White-breasted Nuthatch.

The name nuthatch comes from their habit of storing nuts and big bugs under bark or in tree cavities for winter food. At a feeder the White-breasted Nuthatch will zoom in, grab a seed, and zoom off unlike chickadees or titmice that often stay and crack the seed on the feeder. The long beak and big head of this sparrow-sized bird allows it to look for bugs under tree bark. It's interesting how birds divide up a tree's bugs. Woodpeckers drill into a tree, Brown Creepers crawl up a tree and nuthatches crawl down a tree upside down. Mainiacs call the Nuthatches "ass up a tree" birds. Easton probably has a full load of White-breasted Nuthatches with each patch of fairly mature deciduous woods with its own pair who seem to mate for life. I'm still studying mixed flocks of birds and the White-breasted Nuthatch often joins up with chickadees and titmice. It seems though that when the mixed flock moves out of the nuthatch's territory, the nuthatch stays behind waiting for the next group to arrive. Thus, you'll always see more chickadees and titmice at your feeder with just two nuthatches unless two territories overlap.

White-breasted Nuthatches are pretty common throughout the US wherever there are deciduous trees. The Red-breasted Nuthatch prefers coniferous forests and Massachusetts is at the southern edge of its range. Global warming is moving ranges of birds like this further north so there are probably fewer resident Red-breasted Nuthatches here than a hundred years ago. Birds from further north migrate to our balmy climes so the best time to see them is winter when they are also somewhat less selective about what tree they sit on. I recently saw my first Red-breasted at the Governor Ames Estate on a maple tree although I'm sure it was the large pines, spruces, and hemlocks that first attracted him there.

These birds are smaller than their white-breasted counterparts, smaller than a sparrow. They have the same ass up a tree gleaning style although their beaks are proportionally smaller. It's an active little bird that never seems to sit still. Not a great singer it seems even more limited to a tinny version of the nuthatch "Yank" call. Both nuthatches nest in tree cavities. The White-breasted smears ants and other insects with chemical defenses around the outside of the cavity in an oak, beech, or maple to deter squirrels. The Red-breasted smears pitch around their cavity nest for the same purpose.

Despite their tiny size nuthatches really get around. The White-breasted is genetically similar to a related species in the Himalayas. The tiny Red-breasted is almost identical to the Corsican nuthatch.
Some European historian should explain to the other birds just how much damage tiny Corsicans can do.