BLACK-EARED NUTHATCH 47 



SITTA PTGMAEA MELANOTIS van Rossem 



BLACK-EARED NUTHATCH 



Plate 13 



HABITS 



Up to the time that this race was separated, in 1929, all the pygmy 

 nuthatches of the western United States were supposed to belong to 

 the type race. The species is widely distributed and was always 

 known to all the earlier writers as the pygmy nuthatch, Sitta pygmaea 

 fygmaea. But inelanotis^ as now recognized, is the most widely dis- 

 tributed and the best-known race and must be given the most consider- 

 ation here, even if the new name is not always used. 



A. J. van Rossem (1929) gives as the subspecific characters of Tuiel- 

 anotis: "Similar in size to Sitta pygmaea pygmaea^ but top of head 

 and nape decidedly darker and more slaty (less brownish) ; streak 

 from bill through eye broader and often nearly black, contrasting 

 strongly with the white or buffy white malar region. Differs from 

 Sitta pygmaea leuconucha in decidedly smaller size and very much 

 darker coloration." 



It occupies the entire Rocky Mountain region, from southern British 

 Columbia and northern Idaho south to the Mexican boundary, and 

 west to eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, the Sierra Nevada, and 

 the San Bernardino Mountains of California. Mr. van Rossem ( 1929 ) 

 says that "in southern California, intergradation with leuconucha is 

 very gradual and birds from the extreme southern Sierras, Mt. Pinos, 

 the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains are definitely larger 

 than northern Sierra and Rocky Mountain series." 



The black-eared nuthatch is a mountain bird, breeding in the Tran- 

 sition Zone at elevations from 3,500 to 10,000 feet in various parts of 

 its range. Its distribution seems to coincide very closely with that of 

 the yellow pine, where it is generally common and often really abun- 

 dant. In the San Bernardino Mountains, Dr. Grinnell (1908) found it 

 "most numerous in the lower Transition zone, in the Jeffrey and yellow 

 ping belt." It is doubtless found to some extent among other 

 species of pines, though the yellow-pine belt seems to be its favorite 

 breeding ground. In the Huachuca Mountains we found it very 

 common in the pines above 8,000 feet and up nearly to the summit, 

 where the open growth of pines ended at about 9,000 feet. It reaches 

 about the same altitudes in Nevada and Colorado ; and, in New Mexico, 

 Mrs. Bailey (1928) says: "The Pygmies are characteristic birds of the 

 Transition Zone yellow pine belt, following it on steep hot slopes to 

 the extreme upper limit of the zone, sometimes as high as 10,000 feet." 



