Rocky-Mountain Nuthatch 499 
Description.—Male—Crown and nape shiny black; general colour 
above, including the central tail-feathers, greyish-blue ; greater coverts 
tipped with white ; on the longest tertial the central black area of the 
feather is acutely pointed, not rounded ; tail-feathers, except the central 
pair, black, with increasing amounts of white towards the outer ones ; 
below, including the sides of the head and superciliary region, white ; 
flanks slightly washed with grey; lower abdomen and under tail- 
coverts blotched with chestnut ; iris brown, bill blackish, paler on the 
culmen at the base and on the lower mandible, legs dusky. Length 
5-30 ; wing 3-50; tail 1-80; culmen -75; tarsus -68. : 
The female has the crown more greyish, though still glossy, and 
the young birds are very similar to the adults. 
Distribution.— Western North America from British Columbia and 
Manitoba, south along the eastern border of the great plains to western 
Texas and northern Mexico, west to the eastern slopes of the Cascades 
and Sierra Nevada. Generally a resident. 
In Colorado the Rocky-Mountain Nuthatch is a common resident 
throughout the year, being found chiefly along the foothills and in 
the pifion and cedar zone in winter, and at higher elevations, nearly 
up to timber line, in summer, but it has been found breeding as low as 
5,300 feet at Littleton near Denver (Richards 08). 
Other breeding records are: Estes Park (McGregor), Gold Hill, 
Boulder co., about 9,500 feet (Gale), above Idaho Springs, from 8,000 
feet to timber line (Trippe), Twin Lakes (Scott), West Monument 
Creek, El Paso co. (Allen & Brewster), La Plata co., up to 11,000 feet 
(Morrison). 
Habits.—This Nuthatch is a tree-trunk bird, resembling 
the Creeper ; its usual position is clinging like a Wood- 
pecker to the trunk of some rough-barked tree or running 
up and down looking for insects which constitute the 
bulk of its food. Its long hind toes and hooked claws 
enable it to cling to the undersides of horizontal branches 
and to creep down as well as up the vertical trunks. 
They have an unmistakable nasal ringing call “ Chank, 
chank,” by which their whereabouts can be easily 
detected. 
The Rocky-Mountain Nuthatch nests in holes, gener- 
ally in fir trees, sometimes in cotton-woods. These 
are more usually excavated by the bird itself, but an 
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