White-breasted Nuthatch
by Dave Zittin
When Floy and I introduced our grandson to the White-breasted Nuthatch, he named it the “upside-down bird” because it descends trees headfirst. This small agile bird is constantly on the move either foraging or defending its territory. It is quite the arboreal acrobat. When it stops its descent, it often holds its head outward, away from the tree giving it an “L” shaped profile. It can also cling to the bottom of horizontal branches in its frantic search for food. This species prefers old deciduous or mixed deciduous forests, but if your backyard is close to trees, you will likely find it there.
White-breasted Nuthatch, the “upside-down bird”. Tom Grey
Most individuals of this species are non-migratory and occur in Santa Clara County throughout the year. Nuthatches cache seeds in the bark crevices of trees so keep an eye out for an individual going back and forth from a feeder to a tree where it pounds the food in a crevice then returns to gather another seed to add to its food cache. Nuthatches are monogamous cavity nesters. The male feeds the female when she is incubating the eggs. A male-female pair will inhabit a very large territory, which can be in excess of 25 acres and they will defend it throughout the year to prevent other White-breasted Nuthatches from raiding their cache.
Attracting White-breasted Nuthatches to Backyards
Like most of our birds, White-breasted Nuthatches are omnivorous and they will eat fruits, seeds and insects. Suet or seed feeders will attract them to backyards. I commonly see them on our seed feeder working their way upside down to the feeding holes. They are unable to crack seeds with their beaks like finches, so they grab a seed and pound it into bark crevices and either leave it there for future consumption or continue pounding it in order to crack open the seed and ingest the pieces.
White-breasted Nuthatch on suet feeder by Curt Bianchi
Description
The White-breasted Nuthatch is a compact bird with a short tail. The back is mostly a pretty blue-gray color and the under tail coverts are rusty-red. The sides are varying degrees of white and reddish. The narrow cap is black and the face is white.
White-breasted Nuthatch with hint of reddish sides. Brooke Miller.
Sounds
White-breasted Nuthatches can be very noisy and I think of them as sounding “boisterous”. It fascinates me that such a tiny bird can make so much noise, but it makes this racket to communicate with its mate, to let intruders know that they are entering an occupied territory and for other purposes.
The most common sound I hear from the White-breasted Nuthatches in our backyard is the nasal “yank” or “quank” call. No other bird makes a sound like this in our county. You can hear their common sounds here by listening to the two recordings labelled with a parenthetical “(Pacific)”.
White-breasted Nuthatches are found over much of the U.S. Their northern range extends into southern portions of Canada. Their southern distribution is over the mountains of Western Mexico south into the state of Oaxaca.
Similar Species
There are three species of nuthatches in Santa Clara County: White-breasted, Red-breasted and Pygmy Nuthatch. They are easy to tell apart by looking at the eye and the facial patterns. The eye of the White-breasted Nuthatch is surrounded by white feathers. The Red-breasted Nuthatch has a conspicuous black stripe through the eye with white above and below. The dark-brown cap of the Pygmy Nuthatch extends to just below the eye and there is no white at all touching the eye.
White-breasted Nuthatch by John Richardson.
Pygmy Nuthatch by Tom Grey.
Red-breasted Nuthatch by Dave Zittin.
Explore
All About Birds: White-breasted Nuthatch
Audubon Field Guide: White-breasted Nuthatch
More Backyard Bird Information
View more common Santa Clara County Backyard Birds
Visit our Backyard Birding page
Read our Notes and Tips from a Backyard Birder series
Tell us what you’re seeing in your yard! Send your notes, photos, and sound clips to backyardbirds@scvas.org. We’ll feature your submittals on our website.
Banner Photo: White-breasted Nuthatch by Hita Bambhania-Modha