Tag Archives | White-breasted Nuthatch

It’s Time to Clean Out Your Nest Boxes

By Larry Jordan on February 20, 2024 in Birds, Conservation, Nestbox Monitoring

Birds can be attracted to your home simply by offering food, water and shelter. Trees and shrubs that yield fruit, berries, seeds, nuts and cones will provide food. Birdbaths or pools can be built to supply water, and feeders strategically placed around the yard will furnish supplementary food for the birds when natural sources diminish. Tangles of wild plants and dense undergrowth left to thrive in chosen areas of your property will provide shelter, protection, and natural nesting and roosting sites.

Adult Male Western Bluebird Feeding a Nestling

Some 84 species of North American birds, excavate nesting holes, use cavities resulting from decay (natural cavities), or use holes created by other species in dead or deteriorating trees for nesting. Many species of these cavity nesting birds have declined because of habitat reduction. But you can help.

Nuttall’s Woodpecker Nestling Ready to Fledge

Several of the birds that nest in cavities tend to be resident (non-migrating) species and thus more amenable to local habitat management practices than migratory species. Bird houses have been readily accepted by many natural cavity nesters, and increases in breeding density have resulted from providing such structures.

My Favorite Nestbox Design

There are probably as many birdhouse plans as there are cavity nesting birds. The important thing is to choose a nest box plan for the species you want to attract that can be opened and cleaned out when necessary. The photo above shows my favorite style birdhouse with a 1 1/2 inch entrance hole. It has been home to Oak Titmouse, Western Bluebird, Violet-green Swallow, Tree Swallow, White-breasted Nuthatch, House Wren, and Ash-throated Flycatcher where I live. I have made one improvement to this design by altering the side door to open from the top rather than the bottom. This allows you to check on the nestlings from the top without opening the door all the way. Here is a nest box specifications chart and several nest box plans.

Oak Titmouse Nestlings

I cannot emphasize the importance of monitoring any nest box you may place in your yard, or anywhere else for that matter. There are three prime objectives for monitoring nestboxes. First and foremost, with regular, frequent visits to each nestbox, you may be able to spot problems threatening your tenants. You may be able to intervene so as to protect the adults and increase the nestlings’ chances for survival. Second, you can develop a body of knowledge about the habits of cavity-nesters. Lastly, you will build a dated record of each visit to the nestbox that will remind you of the age of the nestlings in the box you are approaching, and what’s been going on at the box during the previous weeks. This record will help you understand and interpret the present visit. And the best reason to monitor your nest box – it’s fun!

Oak Titmouse on the Nest

One of the most important aspects of nest box monitoring is cleaning out the box after each nesting. RIGHT NOW, before nesting season begins, all nest boxes should be checked to make sure they are clean and ready for occupancy. Your nest boxes should have been cleaned out back in August, after the last completed nesting of whatever species used them. Since then, it is likely that those nest boxes have been used as places to roost during cold weather, accumulating bird droppings. Below is a typical dirty box that has been used as a roost.

This is an American Kestrel box that has never been used. I recently checked it and found a wasp nest inside. They are usually attached to the roof on the inside of the box. Birds won’t use a box with wasps inside. If you find a wasp nest in your nest box, use a thin spatula and crush the wasp nest against the roof of the box. If you don’t kill the adult wasp, she will soon return and rebuild. Keep checking to make sure the wasps don’t return.

This is a nest box that was used by Tree Swallows. This one apparently had two successful nestlings but wasn’t cleaned out between them. You can see the two distinct flattened nests stacked on top of each other bringing any new nesting attempt closer to the entrance hole and therefore easier for a predator to reach eggs or nestlings.

This is a great time to check and clean any birdhouses you have. It’s also the perfect time to repair any damaged boxes and get them ready for the new season before the birds arrive. Believe it or not, birds like a clean house, just like you and I!

If you are interested in monitoring nestboxes for Shasta Birding Society this upcoming season, contact Larry Jordan at webmaster@shastabirdingsociety.org

You’ve seen one, you’ve seen–well, one

By Dan Greaney on March 26, 2021 in BirdWords

White-breasted Nuthatch

Perhaps you have seen white-breasted nuthatches in your yard. They’re heart-warming little clowns, upside down more than right side up, with quizzical smiles in their dished-up bills, and funny little honking chirps, something like the beeping of a construction truck backing up.

Casually observed, they all look the same. But their variations in the US alone have been categorized into four subspecies that speak–or beep–in different languages. Other birds are similarly variable. Robins differ geographically and in depth of color; seven subspecies are recognized. Eleven types of crossbills are known–the crisscrossing of their bills variably suited to the different kinds of cones they crack for dinner, and their separate menus dividing them into different social groups and dialects.

Red Crossbills By Elaine R. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com

We’ve all heard about the loss of nature’s biodiversity, and perhaps how that loss strips ecosystems of the genetic flexibility to remain vibrant and productive in new circumstances–say, facing new chemicals, new climate, or new viruses. We generally understand the incalculable value of nature in enriching our lives, and now we have priced at some $180 trillion the commercial value of natural processes such as crop pollination, pest control, flood protection, greenhouse gas sequestration, medicine development, and air and water cleansing.

We have also noted some of the biodiversity declines over the last half century – 30% loss of North American birds, similar declines in insects globally, widespread fisheries collapses. It’s a grim picture.

But, we have argued, at least in the bird world, we really haven’t seen a flood of species extinctions. Nuthatches, for instance, are declining in our area, but they are increasing in the boreal forest–just moving north, as many species are. Unfortunately, the loss of biodiversity doesn’t happen with only species extinctions.

Nuthatches are like everybody else: unique. Their variety is not just as species or subspecies, but as individuals. Some are bolder, others more cautious. Almost certainly they have different disease resistances, risk awarenesses, and parental skills. So as bird numbers decline, they lose diversity within their species.

Probably we can more easily see the loss at the larger, subspecies level. Imagine if all horses were Arabians that might win the Triple Crown, but there were no draft horses to pull our grandparents’ ploughs. Imagine cattle with only Herefords and Angus, but not the Criollos that are replacing them as climates grow hotter and drier. Imagine the corn monoculture, almost destroyed by the blight of 1970, without the older, noncommercial variety to rescue it with blight resistance. Imagine people as only French, or Uyghur, or Hutu. In every species, the variation within it gives flexibility and resilience.

And beauty. I’m glad the nuthatches are doing well in the sub-arctic. But we can do better than just imagine them somewhere not here.

There are many drivers of the worldwide die-offs, and many of those drivers are interrelated. Climate change is one of the prime culprits. The sooner we wean ourselves from fossil fuels the less we will push the loss of both species and individuals. The more efficient we become with feeding ourselves without waste–in the field, out of the fridge, and through plant-rich diets–the more we will sustain the living world’s flexibility, resilience, and beauty. These are things we can do, both broadly in the world and locally. The material pay-off will not be instant, but it will be extensive and lasting.

Listen for a Nasal Beeping in Your Neighborhood Trees

By Dan Greaney on August 10, 2019 in BirdWords

White-breasted Nuthatch

In the bird world of the North State, there’s little that’s more common than a nuthatch. You’ll find more avian tonnage in winter refuges and flooded fields, and you’ll find brighter plumages and louder songsters. But nuthatches are year-round decorations in our native trees.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

You can scarcely go for a walk up in the fir belt without hearing the tiny red-breasted nuthatches. These little cuties may be tough to see as they pick small insects from high-up in the conifers, but their quick, nasal ankh-ankh-ankh-ankh-ankh calls can be relentless and ubiquitous as they keep in touch with one another.

Down in the oak woodlands, the larger, teacup-sized white-breasted nuthatches fill the woods with calls that are similar but a touch more mellow, slower and lower.

White-breasted Nuthatch

The white-breasteds are often easily viewable, as they usually forage not in twig-tip foliage but on the open expanse of exposed trunks and large limbs. Also helpful for viewing, the oaks are shorter than firs, and many will later lose their leaves. With their regular calling and white faces that stand out against dark trunks, white-breasted nuthatches are one of the most visible little birds in the trees. When flying away, they may flash more white at the corners of their tails. You may be able to see their blue-gray backs, and, in the males, their nape and crown darkened to a rich blue-black.

White-breasted Nuthatch

But it is nuthatch behavior that really stands out. Most birds are like us–our feet are down and our heads are up. But nuthatches give the world a different look. Their regular habit is to fly high and work their way down a trunk. They pick for insects in bark fissures, and the down-trunk approach gives them a view into crevices that woodpeckers and other gleaners miss. Perhaps that less common world view helps lead to their success. These nuthatches are widespread across North America.

Pygmy Nuthatch

Their visibility can be enhanced in your own yard, especially if nearby you have some of the big old oaks they favor. Nuthatches will frequent feeders, especially those offering sunflower seeds. Unlike finches and sparrows, they dine take-out style. They will select a seed and fly away with it. If you can follow their flight, you may see them wedge the seed into some bark, either for later consumption or to hold it there as they bang at it with their bills to “hatch the nut” out! They will nest in cavities of old limbs or in nesting boxes that you can place in your yard.

White-breasted Nuthatch Nestlings in Nest Box

Nuthatches lay a half dozen or more eggs each spring, and their populations have increased over the last fifty years. They are expected to remain regular winter residents of the North State, but are likely to move north for breeding as they deal with climate change.

Local Weekday Bird Walk at Turtle Bay Exploration Park Arboretum

By Larry Jordan on December 20, 2018 in

At the North end of the Sundial Bridge is a large natural area accessible by a paved trail. Habitats include views of the Sacramento River, oak woodlands and open grassland. We will see Common Merganser, White-breasted Nuthatch, Red-shouldered Hawk, Spotted and California Towhees, Western Bluebird, and returning winter resident White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows. As always unusual species are probable. Meet our trip leader, David Pluth, at the Arboretum parting lot on Arboretum Drive off north Market Street at 8:00 am for this ½-day tour.

Navigation

Tag Archives | White-breasted Nuthatch