RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH 33 



L. B. Potter (MS.) thus writes to Mr. Bent of a conspicuous flight 

 in western Canada : "In the fall of 1919 in this district [of Eastend, 

 extreme southwestern Saskatchewan] I witnessed a most remarkable 

 invasion of red-breasted nuthatches. The little birds could be seen 

 anywhere and everywhere, outside and inside farm buildings, among 

 the sage brush in open country, as well as in the woods." 



Swales and Taverner (1907) report the bird very common in the 

 fall of 1906. They say : "September 1 to 3 they were common at Point 

 Pelee, and still more so from the 15th to the 22d, and October 15 vast 

 numbers were seen there. They were eveiywhere, in the hard woods^ 

 hanging head downwards from the tips of the long branches, in the 

 orchards, creeping over the trunks, and in the red cedar thickets ; but 

 by far the largest numbers were towards the end of the Point on the 

 edge of a waste clearing where every dead and dry mullen stalk had 

 several of their little blue forms upon it. There seemed to be hundreds 

 in sight at one time." 



Winton Weydemeyer (1933) speaks of the winter range of the bird 

 in Montana thus : 



My observations on the range of the Red-breasted Nuthatch in winter have 

 been limited to Lincoln County ; but over the rest of the adjoining area described 

 above its habits are probably similar. In winters when the birds occur as 

 commonly as in summer, they may be found locally in all the forest types which 

 they frequent during the breeding, season, showing the same preference for fir- 

 larch woods in the Ti'ansition zone and heavily-forested high valleys and basins 

 in the Canadian zone. During winters when most of the nuthatches have mi- 

 grated from the region, a few remain throughout the season in the Hudsonian and 

 upper Canadian zones, even when they are entirely absent from the Transition 

 and Canadian zone forests of the lower valleys and foothills. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — Central Canada to southern United States. The range 

 appears to be divided into two discontinuous regions, as from Sas- 

 katchewan to Texas it occurs only as a migrant or stray. It is a bird 

 of the coniferous forests, and it is possible that this gap between the 

 two ranges may be bridged in the northern forest from which no 

 records are at present available, since it occurs as an uncommon mi- 

 grant through southern Saskatchewan. 



Breeding range. — In the west the species ranges north to southern 

 Alaska (Chitina Moraine and Skagway, probably breeding) ; Yukon 

 (junction of the Pelly and Lewes Rivers, and Squanya Lake) ; south- 

 ern Mackenzie (Fort Simpson). East to southern Mackenzie (Fort 

 Simpson), Alberta (McMurray and Camrose) ; and south through 

 the mountains to eastern Wyoming (Laramie) ; Colorado (Brecken- 

 ridge and Fort Garland) ; and southeastern Arizona (Wliite Moun- 

 tains, Mount Graham, and the Santa Catalina Mountains). South to 

 southeastern Arizona (Stata Catalina Mountains) ; and California 



