Tag: birding

While it’s not as colourful as its cousin (the red-breasted nuthatch), the white-breasted nuthatch is just as clever and acrobatic. The bluish-grey and white bird is our largest nuthatch—though still no bigger than a sparrow—with a bulbous head, no neck, and a sharp beak that curves upwards.

Winter is one of the best times of the year to spot the white-breasted nuthatch, either at your feeder (try attracting them with suet or peanut butter) or scaling trees moving up, down, or sidebars, in a trademark jerky motion. You’ll also spot why they earned their name: all nuthatches are known for shoving nuts and seeds into a tree bark crevice, then “hatching” them open by smashing them with their bills. So smart!

Along with caching food, white-breasted nuthatches use a specific foraging strategy to nourish themselves through the winter: they’ll join mixed flocks of other non-migratory birds—chickadees and titmice—and hunt for food as part of a larger group. It’s possible this strategy offers protection from predators and makes it more likely for an individual white-breast to find food. (Many hands—er, eyes—make light work.)

That said, in winter, it’s still every bird for itself: a white-breasted nuthatch isn’t above knocking another aside to get feeder food. If you watch yours carefully, you might spot a male pushing nearby females out of the way. Rude! Nuthatches will also steal from each others’ food hiding spots; this is why, once a bird has gathered a morsel, it will first fly in the opposite direction of where it intends to cache the food, hoping to throw spying nuthatches off the trail.

Recent research suggests that the white-breasted nuthatch is an “irruptive” species, and will migrate—or not—based on food availability in winter. This is big news in the avian world. For a long time, ornithologists believed that red-breasted nuthatches exhibited this behaviour but other nuthatch family members didn’t.

These are the best places to go winter birding in Ontario.

While it’s not as colourful as its cousin (the red-breasted nuthatch), the white-breasted nuthatch is just as clever and acrobatic. The bluish-grey and white bird is our largest nuthatch—though still no bigger than a sparrow—with a bulbous head, no neck, and a sharp beak that curves upwards.

Winter is one of the best times of the year to spot the white-breasted nuthatch, either at your feeder (try attracting them with suet or peanut butter) or scaling trees moving up, down, or sidebars, in a trademark jerky motion. You’ll also spot why they earned their name: all nuthatches are known for shoving nuts and seeds into a tree bark crevice, then “hatching” them open by smashing them with their bills. So smart!

Along with caching food, white-breasted nuthatches use a specific foraging strategy to nourish themselves through the winter: they’ll join mixed flocks of other non-migratory birds—chickadees and titmice—and hunt for food as part of a larger group. It’s possible this strategy offers protection from predators and makes it more likely for an individual white-breast to find food. (Many hands—er, eyes—make light work.)

That said, in winter, it’s still every bird for itself: a white-breasted nuthatch isn’t above knocking another aside to get feeder food. If you watch yours carefully, you might spot a male pushing nearby females out of the way. Rude! Nuthatches will also steal from each others’ food hiding spots; this is why, once a bird has gathered a morsel, it will first fly in the opposite direction of where it intends to cache the food, hoping to throw spying nuthatches off the trail.

Recent research suggests that the white-breasted nuthatch is an “irruptive” species, and will migrate—or not—based on food availability in winter. This is big news in the avian world. For a long time, ornithologists believed that red-breasted nuthatches exhibited this behaviour but other nuthatch family members didn’t.

These are the best places to go winter birding in Ontario.