Last weekend I spent quite a while watching both
white-breasted nuthatches and the smaller
red-breasted nuthatches at our feeders. We've commonly been seeing a pair of each -- the males with their black caps and the females with their blue-gray caps. The light was coming from the southeast, passing through the coiled wire wreath-shaped whole-peanut feeder to cast interesting shadows on the birds on the shelled-peanut feeder. Here are some shots from that morning. (To save space in the captions, I use the four-letter "alpha codes" for these birds: WBNU - white-breasted nuthatch and RBNU = red-breasted nuthatch.)
As always, click on any of the photos to see them larger.
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| Male WBNU - note the crossed primaries (longest wing feathers) |
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| Female WBNU checking her surroundings |
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| Female WBNU in the less-common head-up position. Look at the span of that foot! |
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| Her tongue is visible here -- it's as pointed as her bill |
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| See the spiral shadow -- and a nice view of the strong bill |
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| Female red-breasted nuthatch |
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| RBNU with spiral shadow |
Other posts about nuthatches:
