WINTER BACKYARD BIRDS (U.S. AND CANADA)

Red-Breasted Nuthatch

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Sitta Canadensis

Adults have bluish back and uppertail, and rust-colored underparts. They have a black cap and bold white supercilium above dark eye stripe. Their cheeks are white, they have reddish, legs and dark gray feet.

Males and females are similarly plumaged.

Females have blue-gray crown, and is paler underneath and have a narrower eye stripe.

Juveniles are duller than adults.

BILL: gray, long and pointed.

SIZE: small songbird, measuring about 4.5 inches, with a wingspan of 8.5 inches.

WEIGHT: weighs about 9.9 grams.

COLOR: bluish-black, black, blue-gray, white, and rust.

Seeds of pines and other conifer trees.

Coniferous (spruce or pine) or mixed forests, also in suburban habitat with sufficient conifers.

Breeds from North West Canada to California, through the Rocky Mountains and across the border and Great Lakes region, southwards from Newfoundland to the Appalachians. Winters in South to Gulf Coast and northern Florida.

Their call is a slow, high, nasal, far-carrying “nyahk-nyahk-nyahk” recalling toy tin horn. It gives more rapid series when agitated. This call also serves as a territory song. Contact call is a soft “pit”.

NEST: Both sexes excavate the nest, in a dead stub or limb of pine and other trees. The female builds a bed of grass, bark strips, and pine needles and lines it with fur, feathers, fine grasses or shredded bark. Both males and females apply conifer resin to the entrance.

EGGS: 5 - 6 white or creamy non-glossy eggs, spotted brown.

INCUBATION: 12 - 13 days, female only.

NESTLING PHASE: 18 - 21 days.