Bird Profile
Red-breasted Nuthatch
A conifer bird the size of a chickadee, with a black eye line and a call like a toy horn. Some years it stays north, and some years it turns up in yards on the Gulf Coast.
The short answer
- Small and rusty underneath, with a black cap, a black line through the eye and a white stripe above it. The white-faced White-breasted Nuthatch has no eye line at all.
- It is a conifer specialist: spruce, fir, pine and hemlock. A yard with mature evergreens has a far better chance of holding one.
- In years when the northern conifer seed crop fails, large numbers move south in fall, sometimes reaching the Gulf Coast. These irruptions often start as early as July.
- At feeders it takes sunflower, sunflower hearts, peanut pieces and suet, always one item at a time, carried off to a branch.
- It excavates its own nest cavity and smears sticky conifer resin around the entrance, then flies straight in without touching the sides.
At a glance
- Scientific name
- Sitta canadensis
- Length
- 4.3 to 4.7 in (11 to 12 cm)
- Wingspan
- 7.1 to 7.9 in (18 to 20 cm)
- Weight
- 0.3 to 0.5 oz (8 to 13 g)
- Range
- Conifer forest across Alaska, Canada, the West, the Northeast and the Appalachians. Moves far south in irruption winters.
- Favorite foods
- Black oil sunflower, sunflower hearts, suet, peanut pieces
- Best feeder
- Small tube feeder, suet cage, peanut feeder
- At feeders
- Fall through spring, in bursts of a few seconds
The Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) is a 4.5 inch (11 cm) nuthatch of northern and mountain conifer forest: blue-gray above, rusty below, with a black cap, a black line through the eye and a white stripe over it. It climbs trunks in both directions like its larger relative, but it spends far more of its time out among needles and cones.
It is also the reason many people learn the word irruption. In most winters it stays in spruce and fir country. In years when the northern cone crop fails, it pours south in numbers, and yards in Georgia or Texas that have never had a nuthatch suddenly have one on the suet.
This profile covers identification against the other small nuthatches, how to read an irruption year, what to feed, the resin habit that no other North American songbird shares, and what its rising population looks like on the ground.
How to identify a Red-breasted Nuthatch#
Size and posture first. This is a chickadee-sized bird with a nuthatch's build: big head, no neck, long straight bill, a tail so short the bird looks cut off at the back. It moves in jerky bursts, up trunks, down trunks, and along the undersides of branches.
The face is the field mark. A black line runs from the bill through the eye and back onto the side of the neck, with a clean white stripe above it and a white throat below. Nothing else in the family has this. The underparts are washed cinnamon or rusty orange, deepest on males; females are paler below with a blue-gray rather than black cap.
The voice carries a long way for such a small bird. The usual call is a nasal, tinny yank or ank, higher and more compressed than a White-breasted Nuthatch's, repeated in even series and often compared to a toy tin horn. In a mixed winter flock it is frequently the first bird you hear.
The other small nuthatches#
| Species | Cap | Face | Underparts | Habitat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red-breasted Nuthatch | Black (male) or gray | Black eye line, white stripe above | Rusty orange | Spruce, fir, pine, hemlock |
| White-breasted Nuthatch | Black or gray | Plain white, no eye line | White, rust under tail | Mature deciduous and mixed woods |
| Pygmy Nuthatch | Gray-brown, dark line through eye | Plain, buff cheek | Buff to cream | Western ponderosa and long-needled pines |
| Brown-headed Nuthatch | Warm brown, pale nape spot | Plain, no eye line | Buff-white | Southeastern pine woods |
Pygmy and Brown-headed Nuthatches are both brown-capped, both live in pines, and their ranges do not overlap each other. Neither shows the bold eye stripe pattern of a Red-breasted.
Where and when you will see one#
The breeding range follows conifers: across Alaska and Canada, down the Rockies and Sierras, through the Pacific Northwest, across the northern tier of states and New England, and south along the Appalachians in spruce and hemlock. Ornamental spruces in older suburbs are enough for some pairs.
Within that range they are present all year. South and east of it, they are a winter possibility that varies enormously from year to year: absent for three winters, then common for one.
At feeders they visit briefly and often, taking one item and vanishing into cover. They mix into flocks of chickadees, titmice, kinglets and creepers, and despite their size they are pugnacious enough to hold a feeder port against birds twice their weight.
A conifer bird first
Feeders bring Red-breasted Nuthatches into view; evergreens are what keep them in the neighborhood. If your yard has spruce, fir, pine or hemlock, your odds in an irruption winter are far better than a yard with none. Planting for structure as well as food is covered in native plants for birds.
Irruption winters and how to read them#
Red-breasted Nuthatches do not migrate on a fixed schedule. They move when food fails. Boreal conifers produce heavy cone crops in some years and almost nothing in others, and in the poor years the birds leave.
Three things are worth knowing about these flights:
- They start early. Southbound movement can begin in July and is often well underway in August, weeks before typical fall migration. A Red-breasted Nuthatch in a southern yard in late summer is a signal, not an oddity.
- They travel far. In strong years birds reach the Gulf Coast, Florida and the desert Southwest, well outside any normal winter range.
- They come with company. The same failed cone crops push pine siskins and other northern finches south, so a nuthatch irruption and a finch flight often arrive together. More on feeding birds on the move is in feeding birds during migration.
If one shows up, keep the feeders full. Individuals often settle for the whole winter in a yard with reliable food, and some stay to breed if there are conifers.
What Red-breasted Nuthatches eat#
Outside the breeding season, conifer seeds are the staple, worked out of spruce, fir, pine and hemlock cones with a bill that is essentially a pry bar. From spring through summer the diet shifts to insects, spider eggs, beetles, caterpillars and other small prey gleaned from needles and bark.
At feeders the preference list is short and consistent:
- Sunflower hearts, the top choice, because there is no shell to open.
- Black oil sunflower, taken constantly, one seed per trip.
- Suet, heavily used in cold weather.
- Chopped peanuts, taken readily when offered small enough to carry.
They will also work over a pine or spruce in your yard for natural seed, and in irruption years birds sometimes turn up on tree sap and even at hummingbird feeders, though neither is a reliable draw.
The feeder setup that works#
Nothing specialized is needed. This is a small, agile, clinging bird that can use almost any feeder design.
A small tube feeder of sunflower hearts or black oil sunflower is the core. Perch length does not matter, since the bird clings to the port as readily as it perches.
A suet feeder doubles your chances, especially in cold weather. Mount it on a trunk or hang it near evergreen cover rather than in the open; Red-breasted Nuthatches are wary of long exposed approaches.
Stock feeders in August during an irruption fall
Arriving nuthatches settle where food is already available, and the movement peaks weeks before most people refill for winter. If reports of an irruption are circulating in late summer, get sunflower hearts and suet out early rather than waiting for the first frost. General timing is in winter bird feeding.
Wedging, caching and feeder manners#
Like all nuthatches, this species opens hard food by wedging. It carries a seed to a bark crevice, jams it in, and hammers it apart with the bill, using the tree as a vise. Watch a bird leave your feeder and you will see the whole routine on the nearest trunk.
It caches heavily too, hiding single seeds and insect fragments under bark flakes, in crevices and among lichen, then sometimes covering the site with a chip of bark or moss. Caching rates rise sharply in fall, so a small nuthatch can move a surprising quantity of seed in a week.
Their feeder manners are worth noting: they are fast, direct and remarkably bold for their size, often ignoring people at close range and disputing perches with chickadees. Nuthatches rarely linger the way finches do, so watch for the bursts.
Nesting and the resin doorway#
Unlike the White-breasted Nuthatch, this species excavates its own cavity, usually in a soft, well-rotted stub of dead conifer or aspen, with both members of the pair digging. It will occasionally take a nest box, most likely one packed with wood shavings so the pair can excavate it themselves; siting details are in nest boxes.
The distinctive part is what happens next. The birds collect sticky conifer resin and smear it around the entrance hole, inside and out, sometimes using a flake of bark held in the bill as an applicator, which is one of the few well-documented cases of tool use by a North American songbird. The resin is thought to deter squirrels, insects and competing cavity nesters.
Having built a sticky doorway, the adults then have to avoid it. They dive straight through the hole in flight without touching the rim, which is a striking thing to watch if you find an active nest.
Clutches usually run 5 to 6 eggs, incubation takes about 12 days, and the young leave 18 to 21 days after hatching. One brood a year is typical.
Leave the dead stubs where you can
Red-breasted Nuthatches need soft, decaying wood to dig a nest hole. A stand of healthy conifers with every dead snag cleared away gives them food and cover but no way to breed. Where a dead stub can stay safely, it is the most valuable thing in the yard for this species.
Population and outlook#
Red-breasted Nuthatch numbers have been broadly stable to increasing in recent decades, and the breeding range has crept south and east in places, helped by maturing conifer plantings in suburbs and towns well outside the boreal forest.
That makes it one of the few northern specialists doing reasonably well, though its fortunes are still tied to conifer forest, and to the cone crops that decide whether any given winter is an irruption year. Local breeding populations can also fluctuate sharply after a big irruption, since many birds do not return.
What to do in an irruption fall#
- Put sunflower hearts and suet out in August, before the movement peaks.
- Feed near evergreens, or at least within a short flight of dense cover.
- Keep the suet fresh in warm weather; early irruptions arrive while it is still hot.
- Expect brief visits, not a flock. One or two birds making frequent quick trips is what success looks like.
- Leave a dead conifer stub standing if you safely can, in case a pair stays to nest.
If a bird settles in, it may be with you until April. More on drawing both nuthatch species in is in how to attract nuthatches.
Frequently asked questions#
Why did a Red-breasted Nuthatch suddenly appear in my yard?
Almost certainly an irruption. When the spruce, fir and pine cone crop fails across the boreal forest, Red-breasted Nuthatches leave in large numbers and move south, often turning up hundreds of miles beyond their normal winter range. These flights usually begin in July or August, earlier than most southbound migration, and the birds may stay through the winter if food holds out.
What is the difference between a Red-breasted and a White-breasted Nuthatch?
The Red-breasted is smaller, about 4.5 inches (11 cm), has rusty orange underparts, and shows a bold black line through the eye with a white stripe above it. The White-breasted is chunkier, about 5.25 inches (13 cm), with a plain white face, white underparts and rust only under the tail. The Red-breasted prefers conifers; the White-breasted prefers mature deciduous trees.
What do Red-breasted Nuthatches eat?
Conifer seeds are the staple outside the breeding season, prized out of spruce, fir and pine cones. In spring and summer they switch heavily to insects and spiders taken from bark and needles. At feeders they take black oil sunflower, sunflower hearts, chopped peanuts and suet, and they carry each item away rather than eating in place.
How do I attract Red-breasted Nuthatches?
Plant or keep conifers, then offer sunflower hearts and suet. Evergreens are the deciding factor, since the birds forage and roost in them. In an irruption fall, keep feeders stocked from August rather than waiting for cold weather, because arriving birds settle where they find food early.
Do Red-breasted Nuthatches use nest boxes?
Occasionally, but they usually excavate their own cavity in a soft dead stub, and they prefer to do so. If you offer a box, use a 1 1/4 inch (3.2 cm) hole, fill it with wood shavings so the pair can dig it out, and site it near conifers. Standing dead wood in or near evergreens does more for them than any box.