Thursday, January 03, 2008

Nuthatch Behaviour

Having watched Nuthatches in the garden for a couple of weeks now some of their behaviour is not what I would have expected. According to the books they spend most of their feeding day climbing up and down trees searching for insects,etc In my garden their behaviour is far more terrestrial than arboreal. Despite me having 3 large seed feeders, 3 large peanut feeders, two fat cages and 2 fat feeders hanging from the feeding station, Nuthatches are almost always feeding on the floor under the feeders or the floor table I have set up for ground feeding species. I reckon 90% of my sightings, and I see them at least 10 times a day in the garden, they are foraging on the floor with just an occasional visit to a peanut feeder.

Another interesting facet ( well I find it interesting !) is that I had read that they stored nuts etc in trees in holes in the bark to eat later. I have watched one bird for the last few days gathering fallen black sunflower seeds and depositing them in the trellising that surrounds two sides of the garden. I think this is just one individual who uses the garden to store surplus food. He/she is using the small holes I drilled all over the trellising to encourage wood dwelling solitary bees and wasps to use as nesting sites.

Unlike most of the tit family that use the feeders Nuthatches do not stay around to feed but gather food and store it or grab enough to eat and then take off back into the wood behind the house to feed. Even when on the nut feeders they try and chisel a nut out of the feeder as quickly as possible and move off into the woods to eat it. They also have a flight very reminiscent of Kingfishers, very fast and low, almost like a dart flying through the air.

Being able to spend long periods of time watching bird behaviour from the comfort of your warm kitchen clutching a coffee has a lot to recommend it in winter :-))

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