Our Bird Comrades

by Leander S. Keyser

These birds have another habit that is worth mentioning. Having found a larger supply of food than they require for their immediate use, they carry morsels away and jam them into all sorts of holes and crannies in the bark of the trees. I have watched a pair for an hour diligently laying by a store of sunflower seeds, which they had found at the edge of the woods. They do not store a quantity of provision in one place like the squirrels, but deposit a tidbit here and there, wedging it tightly into a crevice by hammering it with their stout bills. Of course, the woodpeckers and tomtits secure many of these half-hidden goodies, but Master Nuthatch does not mind that, for he evens up the theft by appropriating their stores when he finds them.

The white-breasted nuthatch may be known by his flat body and broad shoulders, his bluish gray coat, black cap and mantle (all in one piece), white cravat, shirt bosom and vest, with a few rufous decorations on the belly and under tail-coverts. The following quotations from Wilson are given as much for their vivacious manner as for the story itself:

"The male is extremely attentive to the female while sitting, supplying her regularly with sustenance, stopping frequently at the mouth of the hole, calling and offering her what he has brought, in the most endearing manner. Sometimes he seems to stop merely to inquire how she is, and to lighten the tedious moments with his soothing chatter. He seldom rambles far from the spot, and when danger appears, regardless of his own safety, he flies instantly to alarm her. When both are feeding on the trunk of the same tree, or of adjoining trees, he is perpetually calling on her; and, from the momentary pause he makes, it is plain he feels pleased to hear her reply.

"He rests and roosts with his head downwards; and appears to possess a degree of curiosity not common in many birds; frequently descending, very silently, within a few feet of the root of the tree where you happen to stand, stopping, head downward, stretching out his neck in a horizontal direction, as if to reconnoiter your appearance, and after several minutes of silent observation, wheeling around, he again mounts, with fresh activity, piping his unisons as before... Sometimes the rain, freezing as it falls, encloses every twig, and even the trunk of the tree, in a hard, transparent coat or shell of ice. On these occasions I have observed his anxiety and dissatisfaction at being with difficulty able to make his way along the smooth surface; at these times he generally abandons the trees, gleans about the stables, around the house, mixing among the fowls, entering the barn, and examining the beams and rafters, and every place where he may pick up a subsistence."

Our charming white-breast has a little cousin called the red-breasted nuthatch (Sitta canadensis), whose under parts are rufous or reddish buff instead of white. His crown and nape are black, then a white band runs back from the base of the upper mandible to the hind neck, and below this a black stripe reaches back in a parallel direction and encloses the eye. His upper parts, save those mentioned, are bluish gray. He is considerably smaller than the white-breast, and his range is more northerly in summer; but, unlike his cousin, he does not breed throughout his range; only in the localities which he selects for his summer home. Hence he is a migrant, dwelling in winter in the southern states, and in summer in the latitude of Manitoba and Maine and northward, and also on the summits of the mountains as far south as Virginia. It will be seen that the breeding precincts of the two species overlap, while in winter canadensis comes down from the north and takes up his abode in the southern part of the demesne of carolinensis.

While the white-breast is partial to oak, beech, maple, and other deciduous forests, his little relative prefers a woodland of pine, being very fond of scampering about on the cones, clinging to them with his strong claws, and extracting the seeds with his stout little bill. His call, though much like the "yank" of the white-breast, is pitched to a higher key, and has even a more pronounced nasal intonation, sounding as if he had taken a severe cold. Besides, he gives expression to some cheery notes that seem to be reserved for his own family or exclusive social circles. I found these pretty nuthatches in the pine woods on Mackinac Island in midsummer, and have good reason to believe that they breed there.

Cavities in trees or stumps furnish the redbreasts with nesting places suited to their taste; but they have a cunning way of plastering the entrance above and below with pine pitch, so as to make it just large enough to admit their tiny bodies and yet too small to let in their enemies. In this respect they steal the laurels from their white-breasted kinsmen, who seem to have no means by which to lessen the dimensions of their natural doorways.

A still smaller member of this group is the brown-headed nuthatch (Sitta pusilla), a resident of the South Atlantic and Gulf states, at rare intervals wandering "accidentally" as far north as Missouri and New York. A daintily dressed little fellow is this bird, the top and back of his head a dark grayish brown with a whitish patch on the nape, the remainder of his upper parts being bluish gray and his under parts grayish white. His favorite dwelling places are in the pine woods of the south, where he is on the most cordial terms socially with the pine warbler and the red-cockaded woodpecker. A most active little body, he scampers from the roots of the trees to the terminal twigs at the top, inspecting every cone, cranny and knot hole, chirping his fine, high-keyed notes, sometimes in a querulous tone, and again in the most cheerful and good-natured temper imaginable, now gliding up a tree trunk, now scudding down head foremost, anon circling in a spiral course.

One autumn I found a number of these nuthatches associated with a flock of myrtle warblers on the most sociable terms in a pine woodland not far from Pensacola, Florida. Now they were up in the trees, now down on the ground. All the while they were chirping in their most genial tones. In a spring jaunt to southern Mississippi, I was fortunate enough to find a nest in a half-decayed snag. It contained four of the prettiest half-fledged bird babies that have ever greeted my sight.

Oddly enough, our tiny clamberers utter a loud, shrill alarm-call that bears close resemblance to the querulous protest of the sparrow hawk as you approach her nest or young. Doctor Chapman says of the brown heads: "They are talkative sprites, and, like a group of school children, each one chatters away without paying the slightest attention to what his companions are saying."