The Nuthatch – noisy, aggressive and very smart
WILDLIFE
Sharp-beaked and smart in all ways, the nuthatch is one of the most decorative small birds to come to your garden. More like a small woodpecker with their long, dagger-like beaks, and often seen hanging upside down on a peanut feeder, their stay near you is fleeting, before they fly back to where they really belong – creeping up and down the bark of a tree.
They will be spotted in gardens near woodland, with their clearly defined blue and gold colouring and the distinctive brown stripe from the beak to the back of the head, as they get their food mainly from the insect life found among trees and of course, the nuts and seeds that give them their name. With their long beaks they glean insects from the surface of tree bark and from the deep cracks often within them.
They wedge soft hazel nuts, acorns and beechmast into crevices in trees and also in walls, before they hammer them apart to extract the kernels inside. They will go to a garden peanut feeder but they are not sociable like the tits and finches, and tend to be noisy and aggressive to the other birds. Nuthatches have a wide range of calls. The commonest is a loud ringing “chit chit chit-chit”. The song is a loud, rapid series of piping notes.
What to do to attract nuthatches
in winter
have many mature trees nearby
branches to invite predators
aspergillosis, causing lung infections in birds – use hay or leave them to fill the box
years – best time is early autumn – remove all materials and any unhatched eggs, before giving it a blast with boiling water to kill parasites
A noisy visitor to the garden, the Nuthatch never wants to fly far away from its mainly woodland home but when around manages to be a great favourite.
Their habit of wedging a large food item in a crevice and then hacking at it with their strong bills gives the Nuthatch its English name
They make their nests in old deciduous trees, particularly those with dead and dying timber, lining the nest with wood chippings and bits of bark. They will carefully plaster the entrance with mud until it is just big enough for them to get through. It’s been found that when nuthatches use nest boxes they cement up the inside with mud.
They produce just one brood, six to eight eggs laid in April/ May which are incubated for between 13 and 18 days. The young fledglings leave the nest about 23 – 24 days after hatching.
Nuthatches roost in a hole in a tree, and are really a very sedentary species, not flying far from their woody home. They just love to scurry up and down the bark of an old oak or beech tree. If you can’t see one, you may hear it’s excited, piping call.
They are found throughout much of England and Wales, but only as far as the Scottish borders and not in Ireland.
Country Gardener
41
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