White-breasted Nuthatch

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Sittidae
Genus:	Sitta
Species:	S. carolinensis

Binomial name

Sitta carolinensis
Latham, 1790

The White-breasted Nuthatch, Sitta carolinensis, is a small songbird of the Nuthatch family Sittidae.

The adult birds are about 155 millimeters (6 inches) long. In the adult male the cap and a band on the upper mantle are black. The rest of the upper parts are a pale blue-gray. The wing coverts and flight feathers are blackish with paler fringes. The tertials are often marked with pale gray and black. There is a slight wing bar in the greater coverts. The face and the underparts are white. The White-breasted Nuthatch is the only North American nuthatch in which the white of the face completely surrounds the eye. The outer tail feathers are black with broad diagonal white bands across the outer three feathers. They have short legs with long claws, short wings and a short tail.

The call is a nasal yeah-yeah-yeah in the east or a fast yididit in the west.

Their breeding habitat is deciduous and mixed forests across North America. They nest in a tree cavity, either natural or excavated by a woodpecker.

These birds are permanent residents, sometimes moving south in winter.

They forage on the trunk and large branches of trees, and are well-known for descending head first, a behavior unique to nuthatches. Their principal diet consists of insects and a few varieties of seeds. They often travel with small mixed flocks in winter.

[edit] References

BirdLife International (2004). Sitta carolinensis. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 9 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern.
White-breasted Nuthatch videos on the Internet Bird Collection