Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson XII · Topic 2: Bird study: birds to know
12. The nuthatch
Goal: Your child can pick out a nuthatch at the feeder by how it creeps head-first down a tree, and tell it from a chickadee and a woodpecker.
You'll need
- A suet feeder or a lump of suet tied to a tree trunk you can see from a window
- Binoculars (optional)
- Colored pencils (blue-gray, black, white, rust)
- Nature notebook
What's in the book
The leading thought and method (watch the nuthatch at the suet with the chickadees and downy) and ten questions about where it alights, how it climbs head down, its toes, colors, cap and bib, beak, food, note, its use to trees, and its nest.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Fall and winter are best, when nuthatches come to suet feeders with chickadees and downy woodpeckers. In summer, look on the trunks of big trees in woods and parks. Listen for a nasal "ank, ank."
Keep the big idea in mind
Read this to yourself:
The nuthatch is often a companion of the chickadees and woodpeckers. It has no black bib, like the chickadee, and it alights on a tree trunk head downward, which distinguishes it from woodpeckers.
Set the table
Comstock says the nuthatch "gladly shares the suet banquet we prepare for them." Hang a store-bought suet cake, or let an adult tie a piece of beef suet in a mesh bag to a tree trunk you can see from a window. Take it down in hot weather, when suet goes soft and rancid.
Watch it climb
Does a nuthatch usually alight on the ends of the branches of a tree or on the trunk and larger limbs? Does it usually alight head down or up?
When it runs down the tree, does it go head first or does it back down?
Does it use its tail for a brace when climbing, as does the downy?
Colors and cap
What is the general color of the nuthatch above and below?
Does the black cap come down to the eyes on the nuthatch as on the chickadee? Has the nuthatch a black bib?
Beak, food and voice
Observe the way it strikes its beak into the suet, why does it strike so hard?
How would you spell this bird's note? Have you heard it give more than one note?
Why do we see the nuthatches oftener in winter than in summer?
Put it into words
Ask your child: How can you tell a nuthatch from a chickadee? From a woodpecker? Then share the leading thought.
Nature notebook
Draw a nuthatch head-down on a tree trunk. Write how your child spells its call.
Afterwards
Watch the feeder for a few minutes each day this week and tally nuthatches, chickadees and woodpeckers.
Tip
Comstock's teacher's story calls the nuthatch the "tree mouse" because it runs about the trunk so quickly.