Tag Archives: nuthatchs

Field Notes, Out There with the Expert, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

A Brown Headed nuthatch at Jordan Lake

Finally got a decent photograph of a brown-headed Nuthatch at Jordan Lake!
Have you ever heard the sound of what seems to be a squeaky toy emanating from the treetops here in North Carolina? You may have just had an encounter with a brown-headed Nuthatch too!


This bird’s diminutive size and active lifestyle make it tough to spot, but once you know what to look and listen for, you’ll realize it is a common year-round resident throughout our state’s pine woods.

By virtue of their strong, sharp claws, brown-headed Nuthatches are capable of crawling head-first down the trunk of trees as easily as going up. Their coloration creates perfect camouflage against the tree trunks that the birds can be found foraging on, in search of seeds and insects.


This one was rather friendly and don’t didn’t mind one bit that I was taking his picture.
It was neat to be able to see one of these lovely birds at such a close range!

Photo by @sally_siko
Canon 5DS
Jordan Lake, Apex NC

Field Notes, Out There with the Expert, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

Why do Nuthatches go down a tree headfirst?

Just another white breasted Nuthatch defying gravity on his way down a tree trunk on an early sunny morning, lol!

Right after I took this pic, I asked myself “why do nuthatches walk headfirst down the trunks of trees ?
So I did a little research and found an interesting answer to that question at
https://northernwoodlands.org/outside_story/article/nuthatches-the-upside-down-birds
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Quote below…
“There’s no definitive answer to that,” said Cameron Ghalambor, a professor of biology at Colorado State University who has studied red-breasted nuthatches.
The theory is the birds benefit from their different viewpoint. “You can imagine a creeper or a woodpecker facing the bark of a tree and looking up in the crevices of the bark for food items,” he said. “But there is this unexploited niche that you could access if you were working your way down the tree.”

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As a working photographer I get this!
Working through photographic challenges by employing an alternate perspective has often yielded great rewards.
Better still, a complete understanding of the benefits of working within a niche saved my career.
Looks like Nuthatches are my spirit animal, lol!
Photo by @sally_siko

Field Notes, Out There with the Expert, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

A white breasted Nuthatch at the Caroll Howard johnson Environmental Park in Fuquay Varina, N.C.

If you’ve ever seen a small grey and white bird creeping down the side of a tree headfirst in search of food, you’ve probably spotted a white-breasted Nuthatch.
I photographed this one sneaking down a tree trunk at the Caroll Johnson Environmental Park in Fuquay Varina.
These little birds are quite common here in central North Carolina.
They are frequently spotted in both the backyards and backwoods of deciduous forests.
True to its name the white-breasted Nuthatch gathers nuts and seeds. Jamming their finds into tree bark, a nuthatch can then leverage its long bill to break or “hatch” the food open.
Photo by @sally_siko .