Bird Houses, Baths and Feeding Shelters: How to Make and Where to Place Them

by Edmund J. Sawyer

The White-breasted Nuthatch

All that has been written of the chickadee and his housing problem applies also in a general way to the Nuthatch, except that a slightly larger entrance is needed for the latter bird (see measurements in [Table I]). The Nuthatch, somewhat more than his second cousins, the chickadees, is given to natural knot-holes in living trees. This propensity may well be humored by giving him a house of the hollowed-out trunk variety. If the trunk or branch so hollowed out has a knot which can be made of proper size to serve for the entrance, then that is to add the ultimate artistic finish, the final delicate “touch of nature.” See [Plate II].

Other Nuthatches

The western subspecies of the White-breasted Nuthatch occur chiefly in less settled or more restricted ranges, and they are apt to be less accustomed to, as well as less accessible for, bird houses.

The Red-breasted, Brown-headed, and other small nuthatches share the hollow-tree nesting habit common to the family. They prefer locations of the wilder kind, so that the usual bird house is not likely to entice them away from less sophisticated haunts. Yet it appears likely that any of the species might select an imitation of its natural nesting site. Build as for the White-breasted, except that the entrance should be but 1¼ inch in diameter.