RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH 23 



a cavity in four or more trees before they found the site that best 

 suited them." 



Ora W. Knight (1908) says : "I have quite good reasons for believing 

 that they remain mated for more than one season and that mated birds 

 remain in each others company all the year, rarely associating with 

 others in flocks, while it is the young birds of the year, as yet unmated, 

 that mingle in flocks with others of their kind as well as related species." 



Of the bird's courtship apparently little is known. On one occasion 

 I saw a hint of it. A male strutted before a female in a manner similar 

 to the courting pose of the white-breasted nuthatch. The pose was 

 maintained but a moment or so and was accompanied with some rapid 

 chippering notes. It consisted of a spreading and lowering of the 

 wings and a spreading of the tail. There was, too, I think, a slight 

 bowing downward and forward of the whole body. 



Gordon Boit Wellman (1933) records a courtship flight which he 

 observed on April 6, 1932, in Sudbury, Mass. He says : 



Mrs. Wellman and I were approaching the end of the garden, when a bird 

 flew out of a red cedar and, with incredible speed, zigzagged through the bare 

 limbs of a large old apple tree. After two or three circular turns in this erratic 

 manner through the branches, it dived back into the cedar. Neither of us, 

 although we stood just in front of the tree, had the slightest idea what the bird 

 was ; immediately the flight was repeated, leaving us as much mystified as before. 

 No eye could follow the tremendous speed and sharp turns ; it seemed impossible 

 that any bird could do it a second time and avoid striking the irregular branches of 

 the apple tree. A third flight followed in 2 or 4 seconds and consisted of a shorter 

 performance : this time the bird stopped suddenly on a small branch of the apple 

 tree and we saw that it was a Red-breasted Nuthatch. Almost at once a second 

 Sitta canadensis, a female, joined the first and the two began investigating 

 holes in the old apple trees of the garden. During the flight there were no 

 notes from the male; later, when the two birds were together, the usual call 

 notes were given intermittently. 



Nesti7ig. — The red-breasted nuthatch usually excavates a cavity for 

 its nest in a rotten stub or branch of a dead tree. Sometimes, however, 

 it makes use of an old woodpecker's hole, and it has been known to 

 breed in bird boxes. 



Manly Hardy (1878) speaks thus of nests found in Maine : 



[One] was in a white-birch stub some 10 feet from the gound ; the entrance was 

 IV^ inches wide by 1^ deep. The hole ran slanting for 3 inches, and then straight 

 down for 4 inches more. [Another nest] was in a poplar stub some 12 feet from 

 the ground. Hole 1% inches by 1 inch, slanting down 4 inches, and then 4 inches 

 straight down. * * * Near both the nests were other holes not so deep, prob- 

 ably used for one of the birds to occupy while the other is sitting, as is the case 

 with most Woodpeckers. Both nests were composed of fine short grasses and 

 roots. I notice that in making the hole the bird makes a circle of holes round 

 a piece about as large as a 10 cent-piece, and then takes out the piece of bark 

 entire. I have one nest which has near it a piece circled in this manner, but not 

 removed. 



Walt/er Bradford Barrows (1912) says: "It does not seem to restrict 



