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Updated: May 8, 2025
"The woodpecker well may despair of this feat Only the fly with you can compete! So much is clear; but I fain would know How you can so reckless and fearless go, Head upward, head downward, all one to you, Zenith and nadir the same to your view." We have now described the American nuthatch quartette, and will turn to other fields no less inviting, albeit more remote.
The chewink, the indigo bird, the glad goldfinches, the plaintive pewees are the sopranos; the blue-bird, the quail, with her long, sweet call, and the grosbeak, with his mellow tones, are the altos; the nuthatch and the tanager take up the tenor, while the red-headed woodpeckers, the crows and the cuckoos bear down heavy on the bass. Growing with the light, the fugue swells into crescendo.
I had several times seen the little brown creeper clinging to the vertical wall of a tree and preening his plumes after a bath, and it was natural to suppose that his congener, the nuthatch, being also a bird of reptatory habits, would follow the same formula. But not so!
Sometimes when I have disturbed a nuthatch at work at a hole in a tree, the little fellow would pop into the hole and peep out at me, never moving until I had departed. Woodpeckers are somewhat uncommon here: I have not heard one in our garden by the river for a very long time, though a foolish farmer told me the other day that he had recently shot one.
The nuthatch of central Europe, scientifically known as Sitta caesia, is closely related to our American forms, resembling them in many of his habits. In studying the literature of the transatlantic species, we at once stumble upon the reason for calling this avian family by the somewhat peculiar and apparently inapt name of nuthatch.
"Isn't that a Nuthatch now?" asked Nat. "There hanging to the end tassel of the big spruce; and a lot more above do come and look, Olive." "No, Nattie, they are the Chickadees that father said, a moment ago, you might mistake for Nuthatches." "Chickadee-dee-dee!" said a bird, looking at the children with one eye. The White-breasted Nuthatch Length about six inches. Upper parts grayish-blue.
The warbler does not go scuttling straight down a vertical bole or branch as the nuthatch does, but swings his lithe body from side to side, as if he did not loosen the hold of both feet simultaneously but alternately. Besides, both in ascending and descending he must have more frequent recourse to his wings to tide him over the difficult places.
It was well that Velvet-paw was as swift afoot as she was soft, for one of these great owls had very nearly caught her, while she was eating a filbert that she had found in a cleft branch, where a nuthatch had fixed it, while she pecked a hole in the shell.
However, even this clever birdlet's dexterity is not equal to that of the nuthatch, for the latter is able to climb up and down a smoother wall than his little rival. More than that, the nuthatch glides downward with more ease and in a straight line, and does not fling himself from side to side as the warbler does.
It was evident, too, that the hawks were watching for an opportunity to assault their neighbors, to whom they often gave chase. Yet the woodpeckers had in some way contrived to hew out their arboreal nursery, which was almost, if not quite, finished. It was a freshly chiseled cavity, as could be seen plainly from below. The mother nuthatch was feeding her young.
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