One of the most delightful birds to grace our backyards is the White-Breasted Nuthatch, our September Bird of the Month. Often overlooked amongst the other songbirds, the white-breasted nuthatch is common in our area and readily visits backyard feeders stocked with one of their favorite foods…peanuts! Small birds with a short tail and almost no neck, nuthatches sport a clean black and gray pattern on their backs with a black cap framing and a frosty white face and underparts. With their black cap and similar coloring, white-breasted nuthatches are sometimes confused with chickadees when seen from a distance. But their behavior is unmistakable. They are active, agile little birds that creep along tree trunks and large branches, probing into furrows with their sharp pointed beaks. They often turn sideways and upside down on vertical surfaces as they forage for insects and cached nuts. And their call, a loud, nasal “yank” repeated a few times in a row is like no other backyard bird…and sounds way too big for such a small bird!

White-breasted nuthatches eat acorns and small insects in the wild and are commonly seen (and heard!) in oak woodlands. At feeders, they adore peanuts out of the shell, and will also eat black oil and striped sunflower seeds, sunflower chips, suet, bark butter, and live mealworms. White-breasted nuthatches are among a small group of species including blue jays, chickadees, and acorn woodpeckers that hide or “cache” food in the fissures and crevices of trees to retrieve during the winter when food is scarce in the wild. In winter, white-breasted nuthatches often forage and come to feeders in mixed flocks with chickadees and titmice.

There are four species of nuthatch in North America, with the white-breasted nuthatch being the most common and widely distributed. The red-breasted nuthatch, a denizen of the boreal forests, occurs in conifer forests in the northern half of Minnesota and Wisconsin and is less common in our area, but will visit feeders, especially in winter. In some winters when conifer seed crops are poor in Canada they will “irrupt” south into our area in large numbers looking for food and visiting feeders. The red-breasted nuthatch is much smaller than the white-breasted and has a higher pitched “yank” call than its white-breasted cousin. It has a similar color pattern, but with a bold white eyebrow stripe and a wash of rusty red on its belly.

We love seeing nuthatches in our yard, whether combing the tree trunks or visiting our feeders, and we love seeing their acrobatic feeding behavior…they are certainly the only birds we see
clinging upside down on a cylinder feeder! They will come to almost any feeder: hopper, cylinder, tube, and tray feeders if you give them something they like to eat. We’ve given them their own dedicated feeder, a Squirrel Buster Nut Feeder that only clinging birds can use…filled with peanut splits. It’s perfect for keeping the squirrels out while allowing great views of our
resident pair of white-breasted nuthatches, the occasional visiting red-breasted nuthatch, and a few adventurous chickadees and woodpeckers. We sell these feeders in the store…and they
are a perfect way to get familiar with our amazing little Bird of the Month, the white-breasted nuthatch.
                                                                                                                                                                   

We’d love to see your photos and videos of Nuthatches throughout the month, share them with us in-store or on our Facebook!