A Brand New Visitor

Date: August 19, 2007
Time: 3:30-3:45 p.m.
Location: The backyard of our home in the upstate New York city of Rochester.

Bird Species/Markings/Features: One male White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis). We identified him as being a male because he was black-capped. (The female is grey-capped.)

Sights/Sounds/Activities: "Whit-whit-whit..." the call of the Nuthatch as it crept headfirst down the tree trunk. It actually stopped for about four minutes during which time I attempted to take a video and picture of it. The video was from a distance and the bird had ceased creeping, content to simply sit there on the trunk.

Notes: Upon returning from our weekend at the campground, Anne and I were excited to find a first time visitor at our backyard tree, just below the branch which supports out suet cage. As you may recall, we have recently had the pleasure of having a Downy Woodpecker spend some substantial time at both this tree, as well as, the tree in our front yard.

After unpacking the car, Anne called me to the kitchen with news that the woodpecker had returned. At first glance it did indeed resemble a Downy Woodpecker, just not the one we had been watching of late. After viewing the bird through our binoculars we came to the conclusion that it was actually a different species of bird. Flipping through the Birds of New York Field Guide by Stan Tekiela we realized that what we had spied this time was the aforementioned White-breasted Nuthatch.

Unfortunately, my poor picture taking skills made it difficult to take a quality picture of the bird (I borrowed the crystal-clear pic above to the right). I was, however, able to quietly approach the Nuthatch without startling it and having it fly away. Of course, while I did manage to make a very brief video from a distance, this Nuthatch did not cooperate by doing anything especially fancy, or even normal... it just sat there waiting.

Still, he was beautiful...