There are a number of climbers in the bird realm, but none are quite so
expert as the nuthatch, which may be regarded as a past-master in the
art of clambering. The woodpeckers amble up the boles and branches of
trees, and when they wish to descend, as they do occasionally for a
short distance, they hitch down backward. The brown creepers ascend
their vertical or oblique walls in the same way, but seldom, if ever,
do anything else than clamber upward, never descending head downward
after the fashion of the nuthatches.
[Illustration: Nuthatch]
A little bird that comes very near disputing the palm with the nuthatch
as a sylvan coaster is the creeping warbler, which flits about over the
tree boles in all kinds of attitudes, even with his dainty head pointed
toward the earth. No fear in his little striped breast of the blood
rushing to his brain. However, even this clever birdlet's dexterity is
not equal to that of the nuthatch, for the latter is able to climb up
and down a smoother wall than his little rival. More than that, the
nuthatch glides downward with more ease and in a straight line, and
does not fling himself from side to side as the warbler does. Indeed,
the warbler's favorite method of going about is with his head directed
toward the sky rather than the reverse, while it really seems that the
nuthatch's predilection is to scuttle about in an inverted position.
Does he wish to chisel a grub out of the bark of a tree? He usually
stands above the target at which he aims, so that he can deliver his
blows with more force, just as the human woodchopper prefers to take
his position above and not below the stick or log upon which he expects
to operate. There the bird clings to his shaggy wall, pounding away
with might and main, until you fear he will shatter his beak or strew
his brains on the bark. Sometimes, too, he thrusts his long, slender
beak into a crevice and pries with it in a way that threatens to snap
it off in the middle.
What has been said applies to the white-breasted nuthatch (_Sitta
carolinensis_), but it is fair to assume that all the other members of
this subfamily behave in the same way. The woodpeckers and creepers
use their spiny tails as supports while stationary or in motion; not so
the nuthatches, which are sufficiently nimble on their feet to stand or
glide without converting their tails into braces. Odd as it may seem
to the uninformed, the nuthatches belong to the order of passeres or
perching birds, in spite of their creeping habits. The systematists
have placed them in this niche of the avicular scheme, not only because
they are able to perch like other passeres on twigs and small branches,
but also because they have the foot of the true perching bird, with
three toes in front and one, well developed, in the rear. In this
respect they differ again from the woodpeckers, which have either two
fore and two hind toes, or two in front and only one behind. This will
appear all the more remarkable when it is remembered that the _Picidae_
do not descend head downward at all, while the _Sittinae_ are the
head-downward goers par excellence. Yet they have only one rear toe to
support them in their inverted position. You would naturally suppose
that if any bird had need of two hind toes, it would be the nuthatch;
but the result proves that, after all, Nature had her wits about her
when she evolved this avian family.
The world over, there are twenty distinct species of nuthatches known
to scientific observers, but only four of them are natives of America.
Of course, there are a number of subspecies or varieties. All of them
are incessant climbers and foragers, peering into crannies, pounding
here and there to make the grubs stir in their hiding places, jabbing
and prying with their beaks, and chiseling out all kinds of larvae,
grubs, and borers that would, if permitted to live and multiply, soon
devastate the timber and fruit trees and make this world a desert
indeed. True, the other feathered clamberers and carpenters are fully
as useful, but depend upon it, the nuthatches do their share in
preserving our forests and orchards.
The white-breasted nuthatch is our most common species east of the
great plains, breeding from the Gulf States to the northern border of
the United States and to New Brunswick. One peculiarity about him is
that he breeds throughout his range, and therefore may be found as both
a summer and winter resident in all suitable localities within these
boundaries. In the winter, no matter how old Boreas may bluster, he is
one of the most cheerful denizens of the woods in our central
latitudes, calling his nasal "yank, yank, yank," and sometimes
indulging in a loud, half-merry outburst that goes echoing through the
woodlands. No sound of the sylvan solitudes has a more woodsy flavor
or is more suggestive of vernal cheer and good will. Sometimes he
chatters to his human visitors in the most cordial tones as he glides
up and down his arboreal promenade, or holds himself almost straight
out.
A hole in a stump or tree makes Madame Nuthatch a cosy nursery, which
she lines with feathers and leaves, making it soft and snug for her
downy brood. Here they are safe from most of the prowlers that find
the more exposed nests of many other birds. She deposits five to eight
eggs of a white or creamy-white ground-color, speckled with rufous and
lavender. During the season of incubation and brood rearing the
nuthatches retire to the depth of the woods, and are quiet, secretive,
and unsocial, seldom betraying their procreant secrets.
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."
The fourth member of the _Sittinae_ subfamily in America is the pigmy
nuthatch, known scientifically as _Sitta pygmaea_, a genuine westerner,
not known east of the plains. However, in the Rocky Mountain district
he is an abundant species, his range east and west being from the
plains to the Pacific coast, and north and south from the Canadian
boundary to the mountains of Mexico. Swinging and gliding about among
the pines, performing the same antics as his eastern kinsmen, he utters
a cheery whistle, that may be translated, "Whit, whit, whit." His
movements are often so rapid that he is difficult to follow with the
eye as he flits from one tree to another or dashes amid the branches.
He scarcely remains quiet long enough for you to note his markings and
settle his identity, but once you are sure of him, you will never
mistake him for another bird.
In Colorado there is little of a migratory movement even up and down
the mountains among these interesting birdlets. In the winter a few
descend from the heights and dwell on the plains, where the weather is
not so rigorous. On the approach of spring they again hie up into the
mountains, spending the summer there and rearing their pretty bairns.
However, the majority of them remain in the mountains all winter,
braving the bitterest and fiercest storms, often at an altitude of
8,000 feet. Their breeding range is from 6,000 to 10,000 feet, the
latter elevation being only a little below the timber line.
In spite of his unique and interesting habits, the poets have scarcely
begun to chant the praises of the American nuthatch. One of the best
tributes I have been able to find is from the pen of Edith Thomas, who
apostrophizes our bird in this way:
"Shrewd little haunter of woods all gray,
Whom I meet on my walk of a winter day,
You're busy inspecting each cranny and hole
In the ragged bark of yon hickory bole;
You intent on your task, and I on the law
Of your wonderful head and gymnastic claw!
"The woodpecker well may despair of this feat--
Only the fly with you can compete!
So much is clear; but I fain would know
How you can so reckless and fearless go,
Head upward, head downward, all one to you,
Zenith and nadir the same to your view."
We have now described the American nuthatch quartette, and will turn to
other fields no less inviting, albeit more remote. The nuthatch of
central Europe, scientifically known as _Sitta caesia_, is closely
related to our American forms, resembling them in many of his habits.
In studying the literature of the transatlantic species, we at once
stumble upon the reason for calling this avian family by the somewhat
peculiar and apparently inapt name of nuthatch. The older English form
of the word was "nuthack," which unfortunately has been changed to
"nuthatch," a word that gives an erroneous impression, for no bird ever
hatches a nut. But with the last syllable "hack" the difficulty is all
cleared up, as his habit of hacking or chipping nuts, which he places
in chinks of the bark or wall, is well known.
The nuthatch of England belongs to the species just named. He does not
wear a black hood or mantle, but merely a black ribbon on the side of
his head, enclosing the eye. His upper parts are bluish gray, save the
outer tail feathers, which are black; his cheeks and throat are white,
his breast and belly buff, and his flanks and lower tail-coverts
chestnut red. A graphic English writer, Dr. W. H. Hudson, gives the
following enthusiastic description of the little tobogganist of his
native woodlands:
"When I see him sitting quite still for a few moments on a branch of a
tree in his most characteristic nuthatch attitude, on or under the
branch, perched horizontally or vertically, with head or tail
uppermost, but always with the body placed beetle-wise against the
bark, head raised, and the straight, sharp bill pointed like an arm
lifted to denote attention,--at such times he looks less like a living
than a sculptured bird, a bird cut out of beautifully variegated
marble--blue-gray, buff, and chestnut, and placed against the tree to
deceive the eye. The figure is so smooth and compact, the tints so
soft and stone-like; and when he is still, he is so wonderfully still,
and his attitude so statuesque! But he is never long still and when he
resumes his lively, eccentric, up-and-down and sidewise motions, he is
interesting in another way. He is like a small woodpecker who has
broken loose from the woodpecker's somewhat narrow laws of progression,
preferring to be a law unto himself.
"Without a touch of brilliant color, the nuthatch is a beautiful bird
on account of the pleasing softness and harmonious disposition of his
tints; and, in like manner, without being a songster in the strict
sense of the word, his voice is so clear and far-reaching and of so
pleasing a quality, that it often gives more life and spirit to the
woods and orchards and avenues he frequents than that of many true
melodists. This is more especially the case in the month of March,
before the migratory songsters have arrived, when he is most
loquacious. A high pitched, clear, ringing note, repeated without
variation several times, is his most often-heard call or song. He will
sometimes sit motionless on his perch, repeating this call at short
intervals, for half an hour at a time. Another bird at a distance will
be doing the same, and the two appear to be answering one another. He
also has another call, not so loud and piercing, but more melodious: a
double note, repeated two or three times, with something liquid and
gurgling in the sound, suggesting the musical sound of lapsing water.
These various notes and calls are heard incessantly until the young are
hatched, when the birds at once become silent."
The nesting habits of _caesia_ are quite similar to those of our
American forms, with the following interesting exception: The doorway
of the cavity constituting the bird's domicile is plastered up with
clay, made viscid by the nuthatch's glutinous saliva, leaving in the
center a circular hole just large enough to afford entrance and exit
for the little owner. Says the author quoted above: "When the sitting
bird is interfered with, she defends her treasures with great courage,
hissing like a wryneck, and vigorously striking at her aggressor with
her sharp bill." Like our common white-breast, the British bird may be
attracted to human dwellings by furnishing him a regular supply of food
suited to his taste, and may grow so trustful as to come when called,
and even to catch morsels thrown to him in the air. In the forest he
often hammers so loudly on a resonant branch that his tattoo is
mistaken for that of a woodpecker. The interior of the nest "contains
a bed of dry leaves, or the filmy flakes of the inner bark of a fir or
cedar, on which the eggs are laid."
In northern Europe another form of the nuthatch guild is found, known
scientifically as _Sitta europea_, whose under parts are white without
any washing of buff on the breast.
The Levant furnishes a most charming addition to the feathered
brotherhood now under consideration. The scientific gentlemen have
christened it _Sitta syriaca_, and its common name is the rock
nuthatch, an appellation that is most appropriate, for its chosen
haunts are rocky cliffs, over the faces of which it scuttles in the
most approved nuthatch fashion, head up or down, as the whim seizes it,
clinging with its sharp claws to the chinks, ledges, protuberances, and
rough surfaces of the rocky walls. A little larger than its European
cousin, its markings are quite similar. In Syria it is common as far
north as the southern shores of the Black Sea. Although somewhat shy,
it is described as having "sprightly manners and a clear, ringing
trill." Odd indeed are some of nature's evolutions, I had almost said
caprices, for the rock nuthatch is just as much at home and apparently
just as happy on its bleak precipices as is our merry whitebreast in
his umbrageous home in the oak or maple forest.
But what kind of nests do the rock nuthatches construct on their
limestone walls? That is one of the most interesting features of the
life of these birds. One writer[1] who has observed them in their
native haunts describes the rock nuthatch as "an expert clay mixer and
molder." The bird does not chisel out a nursery in the rock--no,
indeed; his method of constructing his nest is as follows: Having found
a little hollow or indentation on the rocky wall, he will erect a cap
or dome of mortar over it, plastering the structure so firmly against
the surface that no rain or storm or predaceous creeping thing can
demolish it until long after it has been abandoned by the little
architect. The circular base of the nest is ten or twelve inches in
diameter. The dome is not entirely closed up, but a small orifice is
left in the center, upon the edges of which a narrow neck or funnel,
also made of mortar, is raised, the hole just large enough to admit the
body of the bird. The funnel is about three inches long.
The building material employed is fine clay softened and glutinated
with the bird's saliva and mixed with plant fibers, for the little
mason does not believe in making bricks without straw. So well packed
is the inch-thick wall that a stiff knife blade must be used to cut
through it. While the natural color of the adobe cottage is ash-gray,
and therefore harmonizes with the general hue of its surroundings, and
also with the mezzotints of the builder, yet he sometimes decorates it
with the gaily colored wings of moths caught in the chase and attached
to the plaster while it is fresh. The rock nuthatch is as expert a
mixer of mortar as the well-known cliff swallows of our own country,
and his adobe dwellings bear a close resemblance to theirs.
It is interesting to note that the European nuthatch, while nesting
regularly in tree cavities, sometimes also chooses the crannies of
rocks, when he goes a little more extensively into the plastering
business; but his skill is not so well developed as that of his
oriental cousin, whose mud cottage is a model of its kind.
[1] The writer referred to is Mr. H. C. Tracy, to whose charming
article in "The Wilson Bulletin," published at Oberlin, Ohio, I am
indebted for all my material on the rock nuthatch.