WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH 87 



Nest, in a hole in a tree. Eggs, white, thickly spotted with 

 brownish or lavender. 



The White-bellied Nuthatch is a permanent resident of 

 southern and central New England and the lower Hudson 

 Valley, and a summer resi- 

 dent throughout New Eng- 

 land and New York, but it 

 is a local bird, and very rare 

 in summer in many places. 

 It spends almost its entire 

 time on the trunks and large fjq. 4. White-bellied Nutliatch 

 limbs of trees, where it 



hunts in a characteristic manner, sometimes peering over 

 the sides, like a Black and White Warbler, often walking 

 entirely around the limb, and not infrequently walking head 

 downward on the trunk and observing an intruder with out- 

 stretched head. Unlike its relative, it rarely visits conifers, 

 keeping chiefly to deciduous trees. 



Attention is often drawn to the White-bellied Nuthatch 

 by its nasal quank ; the pitch of this call-note is very close 

 to B-flat, though it varies to B, and it is always lower and 

 heavier than the similar call-note of the Red-bellied Nut- 

 hatch. Its song, which it begins to utter early in March, 

 resembles the syllables ioo-too-too, quickly repeated. When 

 singing, the Nuthatch generally perches on some small 

 twig. The male brings food to the female while she is sit- 

 ting. 



A Nuthatch may be identified by its long, straight, slen- 

 der bill, by its manner of clinging to the trunks or large 

 limbs of trees, and by its grayish-blue black. The White- 

 bellied Nuthatch may be distinguished from the preceding 

 species by its greater size, by its pure white under parts 

 (reddish only under the tail), and most surely by the absence 

 of a black line through the eye ; the white of the fore-neck 

 extends up a little behind the ear. 



