Living with Birds 21 Facts on Nuthatch Tweetapedia
21 Wildlife Facts on Nuthatches
March 31st, 2025
2 minute read
- The name nuthatch is derived from nut hacker, reflecting the bird's method of opening up nuts by jamming them into a crevice then hammering at them.
- Old country names include mud dabbler and mud stopper, both of which note the bird's curious habit of plastering mud around the entrance hole to its nest.
- Unlike the treecreeper, which only moves up the trunk of a tree, nuthatches will move both up and down.
- Once a bird restricted largely to south-eastern England, the 20th century witnessed a spread to the north, with breeding in Scotland first confirmed in 1989.
- Studies have shown that large gardens with oak trees provide the optimum habitat for this species.
- One of the reasons for the expansion seems to be the nuthatch's increasing use of bird feeders and bird tables.
- As anyone who has nuthatches visiting their feeders will know, they are bold and aggressive, able to stand their ground when larger birds such as starlings attempt to intimidate them.
- They will take food from the bird table to store elsewhere: this can lead to sunflowers sprouting in unexpected places.
- Pairs are strongly territorial throughout the year. The fact that food is stored within the territory strengthens the need to defend it.
- Though they will readily adopt nest boxes, they cannot resist plastering mud around the entrance hole, even if the latter is already the right size.
- The most favoured natural site for a nuthatch is the old nest hole of a great spotted woodpecker.
- Nuthatches are one of the nosiest woodland birds in the early spring, but are relatively silent when breeding.
- There are 24 different species of nuthatches in the world: our bird has much the widest distribution, as it breeds continually from Portugal to Korea and Japan.
- The nuthatch has never been recorded in Ireland.
- Most nuthatches are highly sedentary, seldom moving far from where they hatched.
- The average distance travelled by a ringed adult nuthatch is less than kilometre.
- No British-ringed individuals have ever been recovered abroad, while similarly no birds ringed on the Continent have been found here.
- Individuals breeding in Sweden and Norway have distinctive white underparts, unlike the peachy buff of our birds.
- Remarkably, a red-breasted nuthatch from North America spent nearly seven months at Holkham in Norfolk from October 1989 to May 1990.
- Perhaps surprisingly, the nuthatch has received little in the way of study in Britain, and most of our knowledge comes from work carried out in Sweden and Belgium.
- Numbers are known to fluctuate quite widely from year to year, probably reflecting the availability of seed during the winter.
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