Red-breasted nuthatches' diet consists of pine, spruce, and other conifer seeds and insects including beetles, wasps, caterpillars, crane flies, moths, and insect eggs. In general, the diet consists of mostly arthropods during the breeding season, and conifer seeds during the non-breeding season. The young are fed exclusively insects.
Nuthatches are bark-gleaning birds. They primarily forage on trunks, but also use a wide variety of substrates including branches, stumps, and the ground. They break food apart by wedging it into bark crevices and breaking smaller pieces off, or by prying seeds open with their strong beaks.
Nuthatches regularly store food during the fall and winter. They cache food under bark, in holes in tree trunks, and sometimes on the ground. They obtain water by drinking from small pools of water.
Animal Foods: insects; terrestrial non-insect arthropods
Plant Foods: seeds, grains, and nuts
Foraging Behavior: stores or caches food
Primary Diet: carnivore (Insectivore ); omnivore
Red-breasted nuthatches are preyed upon by a number of bird and mammal species. Predators of adult red-breasted nuthatches include sharp-shinned hawks, Cooper's hawks, merlins, northern pygmy-owls, spotted owls, red squirrels and weasels. Steller's jays, housewrens, gray-necked chipmunks, weasels and mice are known predators of eggs and nestlings.
Red-breasted nuthatches defend their nest from predators by surrounding the entrance to the nest with pine pitch. They also join other small birds in mobbing potential predators, such as hawks and jays. When a nest is threatened, the female may jump out of her nest cavity and perch near the entrance to perform an anti-predator display. She spreads her wings and sways slowly back and forth to distract the predator from the nest.
Known Predators:
Red-breasted nuthatches are small nuthatches with compact bodies, short tails and necks, and a long tapered bill. They have very sturdy toes and claws that allow them to climb down trees headfirst or to move along the undersides of branches with their back to the ground. They average 11.5 cm in length and have an average mass of 10 grams. This is the only North American nuthatch that has a broad black stripe through the eye and a white stripe above it. Other distinguishing characteristics include a black cap on the head, a bluish gray back, and an underside washed with a rusty red or brown color. The chin, cheeks, and sides of the neck are white and the tail is characterized by white bands and dark tips on the outer tail feathers. Their wings are long and pointed and have ten primary flight feathers.
There is little difference between the sexes, except the female has a bluish black cap and paler underparts. Juveniles are similar to adults, but their head markings and underparts are duller in color.
Average mass: 10 g.
Average length: 11.5 cm.
Sexual Dimorphism: sexes alike; male more colorful
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; bilateral symmetry
Average mass: 11.2 g.
The oldest known red-breasted nuthatch lived for at least 7 years and 6 months.
Range lifespan
Status: wild: 7.5 (high) years.
Average lifespan
Status: wild: 90 months.
Red-breasted nuthatches prefer mature, partly open coniferous or mixed conifer-deciduous stands for breeding. They favor stands that have a tall, dense canopy and a dense understory of saplings. This structure provides protection from unfavorable environmental conditions and predators, and provides a greater abundance of arthropods.
Researchers found that nuthatches prefer ponderosa pine and incense cedar, which both have a rough bark surface that supports a diversity of arthropods. Smooth bark species, such as black oak and white fir are not visited regularly by nuthatches.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: forest
Other Habitat Features: suburban
Sitta canadensis is native throughout the Nearctic region. It is the only migratory species in the family Sittidae. Its northern breeding range includes southeast Alaska, southern Yukon, southeast Mackenzie Valley, central Quebec, and Newfoundland in Canada. In the United States it breeds from central Minnesota, Wisconsin, northern Michigan, and the southern Oregon border to northern California. On the east coast S. canadensis breeds from southern New York through Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. It migrates irregularly to southern Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and northern Florida to the Gulf Coast.
Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native )
Adams and Morrison (1993) reported that red-breasted nuthatches may be important in the seed dispersal and germination of forest trees, based on observations of seed caching (localized storaging of food).
Ecosystem Impact: disperses seeds
Red-breasted nuthatches eat a variety of insects, including beetles, wasps, and flies, that humans consider to be pests.
Positive Impacts: controls pest population
Red-breasted nuthatches have no known negative effect on humans.
Populations of red-breasted nuthatches are increasing overall, but declining locally in some areas. Red-breasted nuthatches depend on habitat with standing dead trees and a variety of species. Logging and management practices that remove dead trees or reduce plant diversity have a negative impact on nuthatch populations.
US Migratory Bird Act: protected
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
State of Michigan List: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
Red-breasted nuthatches use a variety of physical displays and vocalizations to communicate. The most common call of red-breasted nuthatches is a nasal "yank-yank" call that has been describes as sounding like a small tin horn. Both males and females have a broad range of other calls that are softer and used less frequently.
Communication Channels: visual ; acoustic
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; chemical
The word 'nuthatch' may come from a Eurasian relative's fondness for hazelnuts, or for their ability to hack open nuts and seeds.
Red-breasted nuthatches are monogamous. They form breeding pairs beginning in winter or spring, and stay together for a year or more. Each pair defends a territory through the breeding season, and possibly through the year if the cone crop is good. In order to attract a female, males perform courtship displays that include raising their head and tail, drooping the wings, and fluffing the back feathers. A male sways from side to side and sings with his back turned toward the female. During courtship, males sing up to 50 times per minute from the tops of trees and potential nest trees. They also bring food to the female during courtship.
Mating System: monogamous
Red-breasted nuthatches begin breeding in their first year. Both adults take part in nest building. They usually dig a cavity in a tree stump or a branch of a dead tree, or occupy a vacant woodpecker hole. They use smeared resin to protect the inside of the nest, allowing just enough room for their body widths. This prevents insects, small mammals, and other birds from entering the nest cavity. Inside the cavity is a cup nest built with grasses, roots, mosses, shredded bark, and plant fibers.
Breeding occurs from mid-April through early August, with peak activity from May through July. Red-breasted nuthatches raise one brood per year. The female lays 5 to 8 (usually 6) pinkish-white eggs that are speckled with a reddish brown color. One egg is laid each day. The female incubates the eggs, which hatch after 12 to 13 days. During incubation, the male provides food to the female, allowing her to spend more time on the nest. After the eggs are hatched, the altricial nestlings are brooded for the first few days by the female. The male brings food to both the female and young. The young leave the nest 18 to 21 days after hatching. They become fully independent about 2 weeks after fledging.
Breeding interval: Red-breasted nuthatches breed once yearly.
Breeding season: Breeding occurs from mid-April through early August, with peak activity from May through July.
Range eggs per season: 5 to 8.
Average eggs per season: 6.
Range time to hatching: 12 to 13 days.
Range fledging age: 18 to 21 days.
Average time to independence: 14 days.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 1 years.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 1 years.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; oviparous
Average eggs per season: 5.
Because nuthatch chicks are hidden in nest cavities, little is known about the development. The newly hatched young are altricial, which means they are immobile, have closed eyes, and must be cared for by the adult. The female broods the chicks for the first week after hatching. During this time, the male brings food to the nest for the female and chicks. During the nestling and fledgling periods, both adults feed the chicks. They also remove the fecal sacs of the chicks from the nest. The chicks typically leave the nest 18 to 21 days after hatching, but may remain partially dependent on their parents for food for another two weeks.
Parental Investment: altricial ; pre-fertilization (Provisioning); pre-hatching/birth (Protecting: Female); pre-weaning/fledging (Provisioning: Male, Female, Protecting: Male, Female); pre-independence (Provisioning: Male, Female)
A small (4 ½ inches) nuthatch, the male Red-breasted Nuthatch is most easily identified by its gray body, red breast, and black head with conspicuous white eye-stripes. Female Red-breasted Nuthatches are similar to males, but are duller and paler on the head and breast. This species may be separated from the similarly-sized Brown-headed Nuthatch (Sitta pusilla) by that species’ brown head and white breast. The Red-breasted Nuthatch mainly occurs across southern Alaska and south-central Canada. This species’ range extends southward at higher elevations into the United States as far south as southern Arizona in the west and North Carolina in the east. The Red-breasted Nuthatch is mostly non-migratory, although small numbers may move south of this species’ main range in winters when food is scarce further north. Red-breasted Nuthatches primarily inhabit northern and high-mountain evergreen forests. At the southern end of this species’ range, particularly in the east, this species may also be found in mixed evergreen-deciduous woodland. Red-breasted Nuthatches mainly eat cone seeds, although small insects play a fairly large role in this species’ diet during the warmer months. In appropriate habitat, Red-breasted Nuthatches may be seen climbing headfirst up or down tree trunks while foraging for food. More often, it is this species’ tooting “ank” calls which alert birdwatchers to its presence. Red-breasted Nuthatches are primarily active during the day.
A small (4 ½ inches) nuthatch, the male Red-breasted Nuthatch is most easily identified by its gray body, red breast, and black head with conspicuous white eye-stripes. Female Red-breasted Nuthatches are similar to males, but are duller and paler on the head and breast. This species may be separated from the similarly-sized Brown-headed Nuthatch (Sitta pusilla) by that species’ brown head and white breast. The Red-breasted Nuthatch mainly occurs across southern Alaska and south-central Canada. This species’ range extends southward at higher elevations into the United States as far south as southern Arizona in the west and North Carolina in the east. The Red-breasted Nuthatch is mostly non-migratory, although small numbers may move south of this species’ main range in winters when food is scarce further north. Red-breasted Nuthatches primarily inhabit northern and high-mountain evergreen forests. At the southern end of this species’ range, particularly in the east, this species may also be found in mixed evergreen-deciduous woodland. Red-breasted Nuthatches mainly eat cone seeds, although small insects play a fairly large role in this species’ diet during the warmer months. In appropriate habitat, Red-breasted Nuthatches may be seen climbing headfirst up or down tree trunks while foraging for food. More often, it is this species’ tooting “ank” calls which alert birdwatchers to its presence. Red-breasted Nuthatches are primarily active during the day.
The red-breasted nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) is a small songbird. The adult has blue-grey upperparts with cinnamon underparts, a white throat and face with a black stripe through the eyes, a straight grey bill and a black crown. Its call, which has been likened to a tin trumpet, is high-pitched and nasal. It breeds in coniferous forests across Canada, Alaska and the northeastern and western United States. Though often a permanent resident, it regularly irrupts further south if its food supply fails. There are records of vagrants occurring as far south as the Gulf Coast and northern Mexico. It forages on the trunks and large branches of trees, often descending head first, sometimes catching insects in flight. It eats mainly insects and seeds, especially from conifers. It excavates its nest in dead wood, often close to the ground, smearing the entrance with pitch.
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the red-breasted nuthatch in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Canada. He used the French name Le torchepot de Canada and the Latin Sitta Canadensis.[2] Although Brisson coined Latin names for the species, these usually do not conform to the binomial system and none of them are recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.[3] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.[3] One of these was the red-breasted nuthatch. Linnaeus included a brief description and used Brisson's name Sitta canadensis as his binomial name.[4]
Like all nuthatches, the red-breasted nuthatch is assigned to the genus Sitta (Linnaeus, 1758),[5] a name derived from sittē (σίττη), the Ancient Greek word for the Eurasian nuthatch. The specific epithet canadensis is Neo-Latin for "belonging to Canada".[6] "Nuthatch" is a linguistic corruption of "nuthack", referring to the bird's habit of wedging nuts into cracks in tree bark and hacking at them until they break open.[7] "Red-breasted" is a reference to the rusty colour of the male's underparts.[6]
In the past, the red-breasted nuthatch and four other species — the Corsican nuthatch, the Chinese nuthatch, the Algerian nuthatch and the Krüper's nuthatch — were thought to be a single species.[8] These five make up a well-defined species group known as the "Sitta canadensis group", and are sometimes considered to be a superspecies.[9] Within the species group, DNA studies have shown that the red-breasted nuthatch, the Corsican nuthatch and the Chinese nuthatch make up one clade and the Algerian nuthatch and Krüper's nuthatch make up a sister clade.[10] The red-breasted nuthatch is monotypic across its extensive range.[9]
The red-breasted nuthatch is a small passerine, measuring 4.5 in (11 cm) in length,[nb 1][12] with a wingspan of 8.5 in (22 cm) and a weight of 9.9 g (0.35 oz).[13] Its back and uppertail are bluish, and its underparts rust-colored. It has a black cap and eye line and a white supercilium (eyebrow). Sexes are similarly plumaged, though females and youngsters have duller heads and paler underparts.[12]
The red-breasted nuthatch's call is high-pitched, nasal and weak. Transcribed as yenk or ink,[13] they have been likened to a toy tin horn[12] or a child's noisemaker.[14] Its song is a slowly repeated series of clear, nasal, rising notes, transcribed as eeen eeen eeen.[13]
Though it is primarily a full-time resident of northern and subalpine conifer forests, the red-breasted nuthatch regularly migrates irruptively, with both the number migrating and the wintering locations varying from year to year.[12] They sometimes reach northern Mexico, where they are rare winter visitors to Nuevo León, Baja California Norte and south along the Pacific slope as far as Sinaloa.[15] In the eastern United States, its range is expanding southwards.[12] Though formerly resident on Isla Guadalupe, an island off the western coast of Mexico, it appears to have been extirpated there, with the last known record of the species on the island dating from 1971. There is a single vagrant record for Mexico's Isla Socorro.[15] It is an extremely rare vagrant to Europe, with two records in the western Palearctic; one bird successfully overwintered in eastern England.[16]
Like all nuthatches, the red-breasted nuthatch is an acrobatic species, hitching itself up and down tree trunks and branches to look for food.[12] It goes headfirst when climbing down. It can "walk" on the underside of branches. Unlike woodpeckers and creepers, it does not use its tail as a prop while climbing.[17] It tends to forage singly or in pairs.[15]
The red-breasted nuthatch's diet changes depending on the season. In the summer, it eats mostly insects, occasionally even flycatching, while in the winter, it switches to conifer seeds.[18] At feeders it will take sunflower seeds, peanut butter, and suet. It often wedges food pieces in bark crevices in order to break them up with the bill (as opposed to holding the food in their feet, like the black-capped chickadee does).
The red-breasted nuthatch, like all nuthatches, is monogamous. The male courts the female with a peculiar display, lifting his head and tail while turning his back to her, drooping his wings, and swaying from side to side.
This bird excavates its own cavity nest, 1.53–37 m (5.0–121.4 ft) above ground (usually around 4.6 m (15 ft)). Excavation is by both sexes and takes one to eight weeks.[19] The pair smears sap around the entrance hole, presumably to help deter predators.[17] The nest is lined with grass, moss, shredded bark and rootlets. Nest building is by both sexes, but mostly by the female.
The female lays 2–8 eggs (usually 5–6), which are white, creamy or pinkish, and covered with reddish-brown speckles. The eggs measure 0.6–0.7 in (1.5–1.8 cm) long by 0.4–0.5 in (1.0–1.3 cm) wide. Incubation is by the female and lasts 12–13 days.[20] The young are altricial and stay in the nest for 2–3 weeks, brooded by the female but fed by both sexes. Normally there is only one brood per year. Lifespan is around 6 years.
Because of its large global range and its increasing population, the red-breasted nuthatch is rated as a species of Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.[1] In the Americas, it is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.[21]
The red-breasted nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) is a small songbird. The adult has blue-grey upperparts with cinnamon underparts, a white throat and face with a black stripe through the eyes, a straight grey bill and a black crown. Its call, which has been likened to a tin trumpet, is high-pitched and nasal. It breeds in coniferous forests across Canada, Alaska and the northeastern and western United States. Though often a permanent resident, it regularly irrupts further south if its food supply fails. There are records of vagrants occurring as far south as the Gulf Coast and northern Mexico. It forages on the trunks and large branches of trees, often descending head first, sometimes catching insects in flight. It eats mainly insects and seeds, especially from conifers. It excavates its nest in dead wood, often close to the ground, smearing the entrance with pitch.
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