BROWN-HEADED NUTHATCH 39 



I waited till after 6 o'clock to see if the adults might not join their brood, but 

 apparently that was not their intention. * * * it seemed strange that a 

 hole-nesting species should roost thus in the open. 



Aretas A. Saunders tells me that, at a nest he watched in Alabama, 

 "both parents fed the young, each showing its individuality by ap- 

 proaching the nest from a different direction than the other. They 

 carried insects in their bills, but only a few measuring worms could 

 be identified. They removed excreta from the nest and carried it 

 away." 



Plumages. — I have seen no very young nestlings of this nuthatch. 

 The Juvenal plumage is fully acquired before the young birds leave 

 the nest. In this plumage the young bird is similar to the adult, but 

 the coloration is duller and paler. The brown of the head and neck 

 is grayer, or nearly all gray, and the white nuchal patch is indistinct 

 or obsolete; the greater wing coverts are edged with pale brownish 

 buff; the white in the tail is less extensive; and the underparts are 

 more extensively and more deeply washed with brownish buff. After 

 the postjuvenal molt, in summer, the young bird becomes practically 

 indistinguishable from the adult. 



Adults have a complete postnuptial molt, beginning in July, after 

 which in fresh plumage, the brown of the head is darker, and the 

 underparts are more extensively and more decidedly buffy than in 

 spring birds ; these colors fade more or less before winter. The sexes 

 are alike in all plumages. 



Food. — I can find no very extensive analysis of the food of the 

 brown-headed nuthatch. The bird is mainly insectivorous, searching 

 diligently in the crevices of the bark on the trunks and branches of 

 the pines for its food, even out to the tips of the twigs and among the 

 needles. It forages, also, on many other kinds of trees, old stumps, 

 fence posts, telegraph poles, buildings, or anywhere else that it can 

 find insects or spiders hidden in nooks and corners. It seems to be 

 especially fond of pine seeds, fragments of which are generally found 

 in such stomachs as have been examined. 



Arthur H. Howell (1924) says that "10 stomachs from Alabama 

 examined in the Biological Survey contained remains of beetles, bugs, 

 cockroaches, caterpillars, ants and other Hymenoptera, scale insects, 

 and fragments of pine seeds." Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1938) states 

 that, in Louisiana, "the food of this bird consists chiefly of insects, 

 which include moths, grasshoppers, beetles, many of these injurious 

 kinds ; ants, caterpillars, and scale insects ; also pine seeds and spiders." 

 These, like all the other nuthatches, are very useful protectors of the 

 trees and do no damage of consequence. 



Behavior. — Unlike the rather solitary red-breasted species, the 

 brown-headed nuthatch is a decidedly sociable bird. During most of 

 the year, except when the pairs are busy with their nesting activities, 



