Concord, Mass.
1910.
May 20
(No 2)
[May 20, 1910]

White-bellied Nuthatches feeding young in nest.

  A pair of White-bellied Nuthatches have frequented the
Barrett farm ever since I have known it. During most springs
they have withdrawn to the woods to breed but this year I
have seen them in the large trees about the house up to the
present time. Yesterday and again to-day I observed them
taking food to a large horizontal branch of the big elm that 
stands in front of the bird [house]. First one and then the other
bird would come from the orchard with a small grub in the
tip of its bill and alighting on the branch would run quickly
to a certain place on its upper side and then dodge down out
of sight, soon reappearing without the grub. There must be 
a nest there but from the ground I can see no hole of course.
Reportedly the [female] did a very odd thing usually when the [male] was
in the supposed hole, & out of sight. Standing in one place on
the upper side of the branch very near the hole (?) she would
swing her head from side to side just as a mower swings
his scythe, her bill just touching the back. This movement was
kept up for half a minute at a time with great vigor, always
when the [male] was in the hole. Sometimes she would advance a step after each
swing of the bill, exactly as the mower does.