NUTHATCHES: RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH 
523 
Jicarilla Apache Reservation and in the Gallinas, Jemez, San Mateo, 
and Mogollon Mountains. 
Ten miles from Santa Fe, a nest that Mr. Jensen found in a cavity 
in an oak, when cut into on May 27, 1920, contained small young. 
As he is a scientific egg collector, interested in bird life, he “closed the 
opening and watched the birds raise the family.” A year later—on 
May 15, 1921—the nest when examined held a set of eight heavily 
incubated eggs, so again he left the nest undespoiled, and as he tells 
us, with evident satisfaction, “these also were hatched and raised” 
(1923b, p. 467). 
At the head of the Mimbres in May, 1906, a Nuthatch came to 
Mr. Bailey’s cabin to eat tallow out of a gunnysack hanging on the 
wall, but the stomachs of specimens examined contained mainly 
insects and nut meats. Like other nut eaters, the Nuthatches store 
away some of their food. When in their woods, M. P. Skinner says, 
“I heard a lively twittering overhead and looked up to see a Rocky 
Mountain Nuthatch with a pinyon nut in his bill looking for a place 
to cache it. Finally he thrust it into a crevice under the bark of 
a dead limb of a yellow pine and pushed it into place with a few strokes 
of his bill.” 
As Mr. Willard expresses it, these little birds “talk to each other 
as they hunt for food along the trunks or branches,” and while the 
female is sitting her mate keeps up his talking as he hunts for food 
to take to her. He usually takes it into the nest to her, but she often 
comes to the entrance or even outside for it. In the nest linings 
which Mr. Willard has examined, skunk and squirrel fur, and cow and 
deer hair predominated, but he has also found rabbit fur and bear’s 
hair—an interesting assortment (1912d, p. 213). 
Additional Literature.—Allen, F. H., Educational Leaflet 59, Nat. Assoc. 
Audubon Soc.— Michener, H., Condor, XXVII, 38-39, 1925 (bird banding).— 
Richards, G., Condor, X, 194-196, 1908. 
RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH: Sitta canadensis Linnaeus 
Description. — Length: 4.1-4.7 inches, wing 2.G-2.8, bill about .6. Adult male: 
Top of head glossy black with faint bluish gloss, white stripe over eye and black line 
through eye; upperparts bluish gray , tail with all but middle feathers black, tipped 
with gray, outer pairs marked with white; wings without black or white; cheeks, 
chin, and upper throat white, shading below from bujf to tawny and ochraceous- 
bufT (more deeply colored in fall and winter). Adult female: Similar but colors 
duller, black of head and hind-neck usually plumbeous. Young: Similar to same 
sex in adult, but duller. 
Range. —Canadian Zone from Upper Yukon Valley, northern British Columbia, 
southern Mackenzie, northern Quebec, and Newfoundland south to Massachusetts 
and Minnesota, in Alleghenies to North Carolina, in Rocky Mountains to New 
Mexico and Arizona, and in the Sierra Nevada and other high mountains in Cali 
fornia. 
