To the question Which bird of our forests moves up and down the tree trunk, and which one only up?.. asked by the author Alena the best answer is >In any direction, a nuthatch and a pika move up and down the tree trunk. The woodpecker moves only upside down. So she crawled to the edge of the trunk and became visible in profile. Take a closer look! The underside of her body is noticeably lighter than the top - dirty white (throat, chest, abdomen), and a wonderful beak is clearly visible - long, slightly curved down and thin, like tweezers. Long fingers with tenacious claws hold the bird firmly on the uneven bark, and on a sheer trunk it feels as comfortable as tits on branches. And the tail feathers (tail feathers) are slightly curved down, with a very rigid stem and pointed (like a woodpecker). Crawling, the pika leans on them like on a spring.





Woodpeckers live mainly in forests, in trees, so the legs of woodpeckers are short, with long fingers and sharp claws. Two toes point forward and two back. In most species, with the exception of woodpeckers (subfamily Picumninae), well-developed tail feathers serve as a support when climbing trees. Woodpeckers have a thin, strong beak, with which they hollow bark and wood in search of food or when building a nest; the exception is the vertices, whose weak beak does not allow chiselling wood. With the help of a long and often rough tongue located in a special cavity of the skull and passing through the nostril, woodpeckers can extract insects from wood passages. Woodpeckers often feed on ants in anthills, termites and berries.
A source: ·

Answer from Alex[guru]
Nuthatch and pika as he wants, and the woodpecker - only up.

Answer from Mitka[guru]
The nuthatch can move up and down the trunk, and the woodpecker can only move up. But these are just my guesses.

Answer from Monkey[guru]
nuthatch up and down, woodpecker only down

Answer from Evgeny Tarasov[newbie]
thanks

Answer from Alexander Maslov[active]
>In any direction, a nuthatch and a pika move up and down the tree trunk. The woodpecker moves only upside down. So she crawled to the edge of the trunk and became visible in profile. Take a closer look! The underside of her body is noticeably lighter than the top - dirty white (throat, chest, abdomen), and a wonderful beak is clearly visible - long, slightly curved down and thin, like tweezers. Long fingers with tenacious claws hold the bird firmly on the uneven bark, and on a sheer trunk it feels as comfortable as tits on branches. And her tail feathers (tail feathers) are slightly curved down, with a very rigid stem and pointed (like a woodpecker). Crawling, the pika leans on them like on a spring.
In short leaps, the pika slowly moves up and obliquely along the trunk, squeaks and every minute sticks its beak into every crack in the bark.
A thin beak allows her to get small spiders that have clogged there, deeply laid eggs of butterflies, beetles and other smallest living prey. She willingly eats earwig larvae.
The nuthatch is widespread throughout Russia and inhabits deciduous and mixed tall forests. It is often found in the park and forest park zone of Moscow. In our area, a settled and nomadic bird. Quite trusting and not fearful, though more often in the forest you can hear the dashing whistle of a nuthatch than to see the bird itself on a tree trunk. Combining in its behavior the habits of both tits and woodpeckers, the restless nuthatch examines the trunks and branches of trees in search of food. At the same time, the bird, clinging to the bark of trees with strong paws, can move along the trunk and up and down its head and across the trunk of the tree, without relying on its short tail.
Woodpeckers live mainly in forests, in trees, so the legs of woodpeckers are short, with long fingers and sharp claws. Two toes point forward and two back. In most species, with the exception of woodpeckers (subfamily Picumninae), well-developed tail feathers serve as a support when climbing trees. Woodpeckers have a thin, strong beak, with which they hollow bark and wood in search of food or when building a nest; the exception is the vertices, whose weak beak does not allow chiselling wood. With the help of a long and often rough tongue located in a special cavity of the skull and passing through the nostril, woodpeckers can extract insects from wood passages. Woodpeckers often feed on ants in anthills, termites and berries.

Unlike all other songbirds, crossbills breed not only in summer, but also at the end of winter in February - March, and sometimes even earlier. At this time, you can find a crossbill nest on the spruce. In it, despite the frost and snow, the female sits on her eggs, and the male not far away sings his song quite like spring, in which a drawn-out whistle alternates with chirping and clicking. VD Ternovsky in the Moscow region noted the hatching of crossbilly chicks at a temperature of -35 degrees. K. A. Vorobyov discovered a nest with four eggs in the Yaroslavl region on February 18 at a temperature of -26 degrees. The chicks hatched on February 27-28 and left the nest on March 21. This bird feeds its chicks not with insects like most passerines, but with crushed seeds of spruce and pine cones. Crossbills appear in our forests in large numbers during the years of a plentiful harvest of cones, which is repeated after about 3-4 years.

At this time, they really enliven our coniferous forests.

The crossbills have a special beak: its ends are bent and cross with each other, forming "tongs" convenient for husking seeds from cones. It is interesting to observe how the crossbills, having flown onto a spruce or pine, climb the branches, often hanging upside down and using not only their legs, but also their beak - just like parrots. Coloring of old males is red; females - greenish-yellow, and young birds - brownish-green.

In early spring, crows hatch. Zoologist G. N. Likhachev points out that in the Tula region the bird sat on its eggs in March, when there were still severe frosts and there was a lot of snow around. In the southern regions, egg-laying of this bird was observed even in mid-February.

Which songbird spring sings early in the morning?

Redstart usually sings earlier than other birds. As soon as dawn dawns, her short song is already heard: fuit-tp-tik-fuit. Trembling with a reddish tail, she jumps along the branches of trees and shrubs, pecking at insects. Redstart is one of the widespread and very useful birds. It is found not only along the edges of forests and cuts, but also in gardens and parks. Sometimes populates birdhouses.

Behind it is often heard the song of the dawn - a small bird with an orange breast, which, as the name shows, sings its ringing song most actively in the morning and evening dawn.

Then thrushes, warblers, warblers, flycatchers sing, later - grain-eating birds: finches, buntings.

Which bird can move along a vertical tree trunk both up and down, and which one can only move up?

In any direction, a nuthatch can move along a tree trunk, and a pika and a woodpecker move along the trunk only upside down. This is explained by the fact that the woodpecker and pika, when moving along the trunk, rely on an elastic tail; the nuthatch has a short tail and does not participate in the movement through the trees.

Birds that can run up tree trunks...

It is not difficult to meet a nuthatch in the forest, especially in late autumn and winter, when migratory birds have already left our lands, and the deserted forest that has shed its leaves is visible for a long distance.

At this time, mixed flocks of tits, kinglets and other birds roam in the forests in search of food. It is easiest to meet such a flock in a spruce forest or in a mixed forest near a group of coniferous trees. If you come here early in the morning or, conversely, in the late afternoon, when the birds are especially diligently busy looking for food, then soon you will hear a quiet squeak. Go to the bird voices and soon you will see the birdies themselves, fluttering from bush to bush or bustling about on spruce paws. And although the birds gather here are different, you can easily find the nuthatch among them. Most often, he gives out his presence with a short, clear whistle “two-beep”. And, turning to the whistle, you will see a bluish-gray bird with a long pointed beak and a short tail, as if clipped, on the tree trunk. And most importantly - this bird quickly moves right along the trunk, and then up, then upside down!

If you behave quietly and do not make sudden movements, the nuthatch will allow you to get very close to yourself. Now we can take a closer look at it. It is the size of a field sparrow, about 15 cm in length, due to the loose and abundant plumage, especially if it is fluffed in the cold, it may seem larger. Above, the nuthatch is bluish-gray, and below, from the chin and almost to the tail, its plumage is white. Flanks and undertail are more or less rusty brown. (In nuthatches living in the western regions of Europe and the Caucasus, the entire bottom, except for the throat, has a thick red tint.) From a close distance, one can notice that birds that keep close to each other differ somewhat in color details. One side and undertail are darker, chestnut-brown - this is a male. In the female, these places are reddish-ocher with blurred edges.

Although the voice of the nuthatch can be heard quite often, this bird cannot be called noisy. His "two-two" that we hear more often, - a call, so he talks with his girlfriend, with whom he keeps together in the winter. Something like our: "Where are you?" To which the answer is heard: "I am here." But if the same whistle is heard, but louder and repeated many times, this means that something alarmed the bird and it gives a danger signal. Maybe a silhouette of a hawk flashed behind a tree or a fox, stealthily, passed by.

Often, the alarming cry of one bird is joined by the voices of others. The flock begins a general commotion. Many times, approaching restless voices in order to find out the cause of anxiety, I noticed a “cursed” owl birds, probably dozing quietly on a branch until a nuthatch or some tit stumbled upon it.

So, wandering through the forests with other birds, or even alone, examining the bark and cracks of trunks and large branches in search of food, nuthatch spend late autumn and winter. With the onset of dusk, they hide in hollows, where they remain until dawn. At the same time, if the cavity of the hollow goes up from the entrance, nuthatches often climb into the upper part, and if a nocturnal predator, for example, an owl, looks into the hollow, the chances of a nuthatch climbing up, apparently, are more likely to go unnoticed than a bird spending the night on the bottom of the hollow.

But in the breaks of the clouds, the blue sky began to appear more and more often. Rows of crystal icicles hung under the roofs, and the air was filled with the smell of melted snow. Nuthatches are among the first to respond to early signs of spring and begin to return to nesting areas. The areas of the old forest, where many hollow trees have been preserved, become especially attractive for these birds. Sometimes already at the end of February in the old park or forest you can hear the first song of the nuthatch. But it is not easy to spot the singer himself even on bare branches - usually the singing nuthatch sits high, stretched out along the thick bough and tilted its head up. Once, while still in the snow, I caught a nuthatch singing a song, leaning out of last year's hollow of a large spotted woodpecker.

The nuthatch is a typical hollow nest. Most willingly, he occupies the old hollows of woodpeckers, but often looks for a natural hollow that is suitable in size. He may also like an artificial nesting site posted in the forest, especially if it is a nesting box, and not a wooden birdhouse. In exceptional cases, the nuthatch itself can hollow out a hollow if the wood of the selected tree turns out to be very rotten.

With other birds, the nuthatch is accommodating - not only willingly joins flocks of nomadic tits in winter, but can also nest on the same tree with other hollow-nesters (in a separate hollow, of course). The only thing he does not tolerate near him is other nuthatches. If you see two nuthatches close together in the winter, you can be sure it's a male and a female that paired last spring, and maybe even earlier. With his girlfriend, a nuthatch can regularly fly to the same feeder and feed side by side with her next to sparrows and tits. But as soon as a nuthatch-stranger appears here, a scandal begins, and the stranger is forced to leave without salty slurping. The nuthatch unceremoniously chases other nuthatches from its nesting area, which is quite large. I have never found hollows inhabited by these birds close to each other. The closest hollow was located half a kilometer from the other in a straight line. At the same time, an asphalt highway with a high embankment passed between them, dividing the forest into two sections. According to research by ornithologists, there are usually no more than three hollows occupied by nuthatches per 1 km2.

Hollow nuthatch most often inhabits at a height of 3–8 m from the ground. Only once did I find a hollow of this bird in the trunk of a twisted birch at a height of only 1 m. When the hollow is chosen, the female begins to equip it alone: ​​she cleans it from old debris, levels the bottom, pulling out protruding chips. The edges of the notch are coated with clay, adjusting its diameter to fit its size - about 3.5 cm. Often, it plasters the inner walls of the hollow with clay. The clay mixed with the saliva of a bird, drying up, becomes so hard that no predators, such as a marten or a hunter, can penetrate into the nest. bird eggs squirrels, nor the well-known nest destroyers - crows, magpies and jays, nor larger and stronger nesting competitors. I have been going through lists of songbirds that have ever found cuckoo eggs or chicks in their nests. Among more than a hundred species of potential educators of cuckoos were birds nesting on the ground, in grass, and on bushes or tree branches. They found cuckoo eggs in the nests of city and village swallows, and in closed nests of long-tailed tits and wrens, and in the nests of many hollow-nesting birds: various tits, sparrows, pikas. But the nuthatch was absent from these lists. His cuckoo nests are not available.

Having prepared a hollow and reliably protecting it from the intrusion of uninvited guests, the female begins to line a soft bed for future chicks. To do this, she uses a very unusual material: most often thin plates of the surface layer of pine bark. Sometimes the bird has to fly very far for this material. And only when there are no pines in that area at all, the bark plates are collected from other trees: apples, pears, firs, elms, or are replaced by pieces of dry hard leaves, most often oak. As an exception, the nest may be lined with dry grass stems, hair, and feathers. So the dwelling of the nuthatch can almost always be unmistakably distinguished from the nests of other birds both by the edges of the notch plastered with clay, and by such an unusual nesting litter. The female spends about two weeks preparing the nest for laying eggs.

Mating is preceded by mating games: the male either crouches in front of his chosen one, turning his tail like a fan, then he gets up and stretches out in a column, moving his beak raised from side to side. In response to this, the female stretches along the knot and slightly puffs up the feathers on her back. The first laid eggs in the nests of nuthatch in the Middle lane can be found from the second half of April. In shape and color, they most of all resemble great tit eggs - also white, with small rusty-red spots - but usually slightly larger than tit eggs (about 19 x 15 mm) and more glossy.

Having laid from 5 to 9 (most often 7–8) eggs, the female sits down to incubate. The male does not take part in incubation, but feeds the female, calling her outside with a whistle and passing food on one of the nearest branches. But when, after two weeks of incubation, chicks appear in the nest, both partners begin to work almost on an equal footing. From dawn (from 4.30 am) until late evening (22.30) they collect and carry food to the nest. During these 18 hours, parents manage to fly up to the nest more than 300 times. Not only do the birds work all day long, looking for food, they manage to keep the nest clean, regularly taking out white capsules of droppings. While the chicks are still very young, adult birds, bringing food, climb inside the hollow. But when the chicks grow up, they begin to crawl out to the entrance itself, and it is enough for a feeding bird to put food into the wide-open beak of a hungry chick.

Feeding continues up to 25 days. During this time, the chicks have time to fledge and get stronger and leave the hollow capable of tolerably flying. Departure of chicks can be observed at different dates in June. The fledglings of nuthatches differ little in color from adult birds, except perhaps a little dimmer than them. For the first few days, the brood stays together and is fed by the parents. At night, the chicks do not hide in a hollow, but sit on one branch and fall asleep, closely clinging to each other. When the chicks get stronger, the family begins to wander through the forests, and at the end of August joins the flocks of tits and other birds.

Nutatch chicks are fed with caterpillars and pupae of small butterflies: scoops, moths, leafworms, beetle larvae, flies and other soft insects and spiders. Adult birds eat both animal and plant foods. Forage is collected mainly from the surface of the bark of trunks and large branches, crawling up and down the trees and examining the cracks and folds of the bark. If they find prey in any crack or deepening of the wood itself, they can expand access to food with their beak. Examining the lagging bark from all sides, the nuthatch reaches the insects located in the upper part of the tree, which is usually missed by pikas and tits. Most of the invertebrates destroyed by the nuthatch are forest pests. First of all, these are beetles: weevils, leafworms, bark beetles, nutcrackers, gold beetles, barbels, as well as hymenoptera: sawflies and their larvae and walnuts. Of the butterflies, the nuthatch most often eats the scoop and moths and their caterpillars and pupae. It can also handle large insects. In the spring, during the flight of the May beetles, the nuthatches grab them on the fly, and more often they collect them from the leaves and peck at them, pushing them into the gap and holding them with their paws. Once I saw how a nuthatch, having found a large blue ribbonworm on the bark of a willow (one of our largest night butterflies, up to 9 cm in wingspan), hit it hard with a sharp beak. From this blow, the butterfly fell to the ground and began to beat, losing the ability to fly. The nuthatch descended to her, grabbed her with her beak and carried her to a tree.

I found the wings of these and other large butterflies at the foot of the trunks many times. Most likely, they were eaten by nuthatches or tits. Often large butterflies are also caught by the scops owl. But in our forests (in the middle lane) it is very rare. In addition, it eats prey sitting on a comfortable bough, and torn off wings and other half-eaten remnants of its meal fall to the ground away from the trunk.

Since autumn, plant foods begin to play an increasingly important role in the nutrition of nuthatch. These birds have a highly developed instinct for food storage. In August, nuthatches can often be seen on hazel bushes or on oaks, where birds, climbing thin branches, look for nuts or acorns. At this time, more often than usual, they crawl down to the ground at the foot of nut-bearing plants and look for nuts among the fallen leaves. Having found a nut or an acorn, the bird grabs it with its beak and carries it to hide. It is difficult for a nuthatch to grasp a particularly large nut or acorn, and it is not easy to break through the shell of a large nut, therefore, among the fruits stored by this type of fruit, the vast majority are medium-sized nuts with a thin shell. The nuthatches living in the Caucasus and in the western regions of Europe also collect beech nuts, and the nuthatches living in Eastern Siberia and Far East, take away and hide the nuts of the Siberian and Korean cedars.

After a good harvest of nuts, by the end of winter, on the trunks of many oaks, it is easy to find punched empty shells sandwiched in cracks in the bark. These are traces of the work of the nuthatch. But even in autumn and early winter, whole nuts are almost never found in cracks in the bark. Apparently, nuthatch hides most of the fruits very carefully, away from the eyes of jays, nutcrackers, squirrels and other lovers of nuts. The fact that the nuthatch remembers at least some of their “stash”, I was convinced when I saw how the nuthatch dived into the hollow from the summer and immediately jumped back, carrying a nut in its beak.

Nuthatches tolerate captivity well, especially if they are released from the cage from time to time to walk around the room. Then, if there are cockroaches in the house, black days come for insects. I am intimately acquainted with bird lovers who have kept nuthatches. All of them were pleased with their pets for their lively cheerful disposition. In captivity, nuthatches can live up to 9 years.

But, in my opinion, it is even more interesting to teach the nuthatch to visit your feeder in winter, which is not difficult to do if you live outside the city or at least near the city park. Sunflower seeds, watermelon seeds, melons, pumpkins, pine nuts, peeled hazelnut kernels should be laid out on the feeder and pieces of unsalted fat should be hung out. Then, after a while, you will be able to observe nuthatches and other birds daily at close range...

There is the only bird in the world that can run up and down the trees, and this miracle is called the nuthatch. Nuthatches live in the forests of Northwest Africa, Europe, in the countries of the Balkan Peninsula, as well as in North America and Asia. The bird belongs to the passerine family and its size is no larger than an ordinary sparrow. Nature endowed the nuthatch with a dense body and a gray-blue color on the back and on the abdomen with a reddish-whitish. The tail and wings of a nimble bird are painted black. A characteristic black line runs to the back of the head from the ear.

How do nuthatches walk on tree trunks? Nuthatches move along tree trunks thanks to their strong and long beak, which is bent upwards, strong paws and sharp and strongly curved claws. Birds move along the tree in short jumps and use their wings only when they need to jump to another tree. Nuthatches calmly walk along a vertical plane, clinging to the bark with claws that do not allow them to fall.
What do nuthatch eat? The nuthatch, in principle, like other bird species, loves to feast on various insects, seeds of coniferous plants, pine nuts and fruits of maple and linden. A bird, when it sees an insect, approaches it imperceptibly, presses it with its paw to a tree trunk or to the surface of the earth, and absorbs it. But she puts large pine nuts and seeds into the crevices of the tree bark, and hits them with her beak. By the way, nuthatches are considered quite thrifty creatures. In autumn, they stock up on acorns and nuts and put everything in the bark of a tree. IN winter period the bird returns to its "warehouse" and feeds on supplies for the whole winter. Nuthatches do not fly south, but if the winter is snowy and very cold, then they have to leave their territory and fly to another, in search of food.

Nest building. Already at the very beginning of spring, the birds begin to lek. The song of the nuthatch is very similar to a melodic and loud whistle. By the way, the nuthatches were nicknamed "coachmen" because their sounds strongly resemble the whistle of a coachman chasing bream. Now it is no longer possible to find real coachmen, but the birds still carry the nickname. As for the nests, they are built in the hollows of trees and covered with clay so that a small hole remains outside. In some cases, nuthatch is smeared with clay inside the hollow. Females lay about eight eggs at a time and incubate them for about two weeks. Both parents take care of the babies for a month, since it is during this time that the chicks gain strength and fly out on their own from the parental home.

Songbirds capable of running or crawling up tree trunks

There are no uninteresting birds - I was convinced of this by watching various types for many years. But nuthatch among the feathered population of our forests, I would single out especially - there are a lot of unusual things in their behavior and habits.

It is not difficult to meet a nuthatch in the forest, especially in late autumn and winter, when migratory birds have already left our region, and the deserted forest that has shed its leaves can be seen from a long distance.

At this time, mixed flocks of tits, kinglets and other birds roam in the forests in search of food. It is easiest to meet such a flock in a spruce forest or in a mixed forest near a group of coniferous trees. If you come here early in the morning or, conversely, in the late afternoon, when the birds are especially diligently busy looking for food, then soon you will hear a quiet squeak. Go to the bird voices and soon you will see the birdies themselves, fluttering from bush to bush or bustling about on spruce paws. And although the birds gather here are different, you can easily find the nuthatch among them. Most often, he gives out his presence with a short, clear whistle “two-beep”. And, turning to the whistle, you will see a bluish-gray bird with a long pointed beak and a short tail, as if clipped, on the tree trunk. And most importantly - this bird quickly moves right along the trunk, and then up, then upside down!

If you behave quietly and do not make sudden movements, the nuthatch will allow you to get very close to yourself. Now we can take a closer look at it. It is the size of a field sparrow, about 15 cm in length, due to the loose and abundant plumage, especially if it is fluffed in the cold, it may seem larger. Above, the nuthatch is bluish-gray, and below, from the chin and almost to the tail, its plumage is white. Flanks and undertail are more or less rusty brown. (In nuthatches living in the western regions of Europe and the Caucasus, the entire bottom, except for the throat, has a thick red tint.) From a close distance, one can notice that birds that keep close to each other differ somewhat in color details. One side and undertail are darker, chestnut-brown - this is a male. In the female, these places are reddish-ocher with blurred edges.

Although the voice of the nuthatch can be heard quite often, this bird cannot be called noisy. His “two-two”, which we hear most often, is a call, so he talks with his girlfriend, with whom he stays together in the winter. Something like our: "Where are you?" To which the answer is heard: "I am here." But if the same whistle is heard, but louder and repeated many times, this means that something alarmed the bird and it gives a danger signal. Maybe a silhouette of a hawk flashed behind a tree or a fox, stealthily, passed by.

Often, the alarming cry of one bird is joined by the voices of others. The flock begins a general commotion. Many times, approaching restless voices in order to find out the cause of the alarm, I noticed an owl “cursed” by birds, probably quietly dozing on a branch until a nuthatch or some tit stumbled upon it.

So, wandering through the forests with other birds, or even alone, examining the bark and cracks of trunks and large branches in search of food, nuthatch spend late autumn and winter. With the onset of dusk, they hide in hollows, where they remain until dawn. At the same time, if the cavity of the hollow goes up from the entrance, nuthatches often climb into the upper part, and if a nocturnal predator, for example, an owl, looks into the hollow, the chances of a nuthatch climbing up, apparently, are more likely to go unnoticed than a bird spending the night on the bottom of the hollow.

But in the breaks of the clouds, the blue sky began to appear more and more often. Rows of crystal icicles hung under the roofs, and the air was filled with the smell of melted snow. Nuthatches are among the first to respond to early signs of spring and begin to return to nesting areas. The areas of the old forest, where many hollow trees have been preserved, become especially attractive for these birds. Sometimes already at the end of February in the old park or forest you can hear the first song of the nuthatch. But it is not easy to spot the singer himself even on bare branches - usually the singing nuthatch sits high, stretched out along the thick bough and tilted its head up. Once, while still in the snow, I caught a nuthatch singing a song, leaning out of last year's hollow of a large spotted woodpecker.

The nuthatch is a typical hollow nest. Most willingly, he occupies the old hollows of woodpeckers, but often looks for a natural hollow that is suitable in size. He may also like an artificial nesting site posted in the forest, especially if it is a nesting box, and not a wooden birdhouse. In exceptional cases, the nuthatch itself can hollow out a hollow if the wood of the selected tree turns out to be very rotten.

With other birds, the nuthatch is accommodating - not only willingly joins flocks of nomadic tits in winter, but can also nest on the same tree with other hollow-nesters (in a separate hollow, of course). The only thing he does not tolerate near him is other nuthatches. If you see two nuthatches close together in the winter, you can be sure it's a male and a female that paired last spring, and maybe even earlier. With his girlfriend, a nuthatch can regularly fly to the same feeder and feed side by side with her next to sparrows and tits. But as soon as a nuthatch-stranger appears here, a scandal begins, and the stranger is forced to leave without salty slurping. The nuthatch unceremoniously chases other nuthatches from its nesting area, which is quite large. I have never found hollows inhabited by these birds close to each other. The closest hollow was located half a kilometer from the other in a straight line. At the same time, an asphalt highway with a high embankment passed between them, dividing the forest into two sections. According to research by ornithologists, there are usually no more than three hollows occupied by nuthatch per 1 km 2.

Hollow nuthatch most often inhabits at a height of 3–8 m from the ground. Only once did I find a hollow of this bird in the trunk of a twisted birch at a height of only 1 m. When the hollow is chosen, the female begins to equip it alone: ​​she cleans it from old debris, levels the bottom, pulling out protruding chips. The edges of the notch are coated with clay, adjusting its diameter to fit its size - about 3.5 cm. Often, it plasters the inner walls of the hollow with clay. The clay mixed with the saliva of a bird, when dried, becomes so hard that neither predators, such as martens or squirrels that hunt bird eggs, nor the well-known destroyers of nests - crows, magpies and jays, nor larger and stronger nesting competitors can penetrate into the nest. I have been going through lists of songbirds that have ever found cuckoo eggs or chicks in their nests. Among more than a hundred species of potential educators of cuckoos were birds nesting on the ground, in grass, and on bushes or tree branches. They found cuckoo eggs in the nests of city and village swallows, and in closed nests of long-tailed tits and wrens, and in the nests of many hollow-nesting birds: various tits, sparrows, pikas. But the nuthatch was absent from these lists. His cuckoo nests are not available.

Having prepared a hollow and reliably protecting it from the intrusion of uninvited guests, the female begins to line a soft bed for future chicks. To do this, she uses a very unusual material: most often thin plates of the surface layer of pine bark. Sometimes the bird has to fly very far for this material. And only when there are no pine trees in that area at all, the bark plates are collected from other trees: apple trees, pears, firs, elms, or are replaced by pieces of dry hard leaves, most often oak. As an exception, the nest may be lined with dry grass stems, hair, and feathers. So the dwelling of the nuthatch can almost always be unmistakably distinguished from the nests of other birds both by the edges of the notch plastered with clay, and by such an unusual nesting litter. The female spends about two weeks preparing the nest for laying eggs.

Mating is preceded by mating games: the male either crouches in front of his chosen one, turning his tail like a fan, then he gets up and stretches out in a column, moving his beak raised from side to side. In response to this, the female stretches along the knot and slightly puffs up the feathers on her back. The first laid eggs in the nests of nuthatch in the Middle lane can be found from the second half of April. In shape and color, they most of all resemble great tit eggs - also white, with small rusty-red spots - but usually slightly larger than tit eggs (about 19 x 15 mm) and more glossy.

Having laid from 5 to 9 (most often 7–8) eggs, the female sits down to incubate. The male does not take part in incubation, but feeds the female, calling her outside with a whistle and passing food on one of the nearest branches. But when, after two weeks of incubation, chicks appear in the nest, both partners begin to work almost on an equal footing. From dawn (from 4.30 am) until late evening (22.30) they collect and carry food to the nest. During these 18 hours, parents manage to fly up to the nest more than 300 times. Not only do the birds work all day long, looking for food, they manage to keep the nest clean, regularly taking out white capsules of droppings. While the chicks are still very young, adult birds, bringing food, climb inside the hollow. But when the chicks grow up, they begin to crawl out to the entrance itself, and it is enough for a feeding bird to put food into the wide-open beak of a hungry chick.

Feeding continues up to 25 days. During this time, the chicks have time to fledge and get stronger and leave the hollow capable of tolerably flying. Departure of chicks can be observed at different dates in June. The fledglings of nuthatches differ little in color from adult birds, except perhaps a little dimmer than them. For the first few days, the brood stays together and is fed by the parents. At night, the chicks do not hide in a hollow, but sit on one branch and fall asleep, closely clinging to each other. When the chicks get stronger, the family begins to wander through the forests, and at the end of August joins the flocks of tits and other birds.

Nutatch chicks are fed with caterpillars and pupae of small butterflies: scoops, moths, leafworms, beetle larvae, flies and other soft insects and spiders. Adult birds eat both animal and plant foods. Forage is collected mainly from the surface of the bark of trunks and large branches, crawling up and down the trees and examining the cracks and folds of the bark. If they find prey in any crack or deepening of the wood itself, they can expand access to food with their beak. Examining the lagging bark from all sides, the nuthatch reaches the insects located in the upper part of the tree, which is usually missed by pikas and tits. Most of the invertebrates destroyed by the nuthatch are forest pests. First of all, these are beetles: weevils, leafworms, bark beetles, nutcrackers, gold beetles, barbels, as well as hymenoptera: sawflies and their larvae and walnuts. Of the butterflies, the nuthatch most often eats the scoop and moths and their caterpillars and pupae. It can also handle large insects. In the spring, during the flight of the May beetles, the nuthatches grab them on the fly, and more often they collect them from the leaves and peck at them, pushing them into the gap and holding them with their paws. Once I saw a nuthatch, finding a large blue ribbonworm (one of our largest night butterflies, up to 9 cm in wingspan) on the bark of a willow, hit it hard with a sharp beak. From this blow, the butterfly fell to the ground and began to beat, losing the ability to fly. The nuthatch descended to her, grabbed her with her beak and carried her to a tree.

I found the wings of these and other large butterflies at the foot of the trunks many times. Most likely, they were eaten by nuthatches or tits. Often large butterflies are also caught by the scops owl. But in our forests (in the middle lane) it is very rare. In addition, it eats prey sitting on a comfortable bough, and torn off wings and other half-eaten remnants of its meal fall to the ground away from the trunk.

Since autumn, plant foods begin to play an increasingly important role in the nutrition of nuthatch. These birds have a highly developed instinct for food storage. In August, nuthatches can often be seen on hazel bushes or on oaks, where birds, climbing thin branches, look for nuts or acorns. At this time, more often than usual, they crawl down to the ground at the foot of nut-bearing plants and look for nuts among the fallen leaves. Having found a nut or an acorn, the bird grabs it with its beak and carries it to hide. It is difficult for a nuthatch to grasp a particularly large nut or acorn, and it is not easy to break through the shell of a large nut, therefore, among the fruits stored by this type of fruit, the vast majority are medium-sized nuts with a thin shell. The nuthatches living in the Caucasus and in the western regions of Europe also collect beech nuts, and the nuthatches living in Eastern Siberia and the Far East steal and hide the nuts of the Siberian and Korean cedars.

After a good harvest of nuts, by the end of winter, on the trunks of many oaks, it is easy to find punched empty shells sandwiched in cracks in the bark. These are traces of the work of the nuthatch. But even in autumn and early winter, whole nuts are almost never found in cracks in the bark. Apparently, nuthatch hides most of the fruits very carefully, away from the eyes of jays, nutcrackers, squirrels and other lovers of nuts. The fact that the nuthatch remember at least some of their “stash”, I was convinced when I saw how the nuthatch dived into the hollow from the summer and immediately jumped back, carrying a nut in its beak.

Nuthatches tolerate captivity well, especially if they are released from the cage from time to time to walk around the room. Then, if there are cockroaches in the house, black days come for insects. I am intimately acquainted with bird lovers who have kept nuthatches. All of them were pleased with their pets for their lively cheerful disposition. In captivity, nuthatches can live up to 9 years.

But, in my opinion, it is even more interesting to teach the nuthatch to visit your feeder in winter, which is not difficult to do if you live outside the city or at least near the city park. Sunflower seeds, watermelon seeds, melons, pumpkins, pine nuts, peeled hazelnut kernels should be laid out on the feeder and pieces of unsalted fat should be hung out. Then after a while you will be able to observe nuthatches and other birds at close range every day.

The nuthatches are assigned to a separate family. In the kind of nuthatch ( Sitta) are distinguished from 18 to 23 species. These are small songbirds from 9.5 to 18 cm long and weighing from 15 to 40 g. They are distributed in Eurasia, North America and northern Africa. The smallest of them, living in North America baby nuthatch (Sitta pygmaea), can be compared to a small tit. And the largest giant nuthatch (Sitta magna), living in Burma and southern China, is no larger than a starling. We live common nuthatch (Sitta europaea) - its mass is about 24 g.

Outwardly, all nuthatches are similar: a long pointed beak, a short, straight cut tail. Most species are not brightly colored. The predominant color is bluish-gray, gray or brownish-gray above, light white with an ocher, brown or red tint below. Many have a wide dark stripe running through their eyes, or a dark “cap” on their heads. And only some East Asian species have a "tropical" bright blue color. Sometimes they also have a bright coral-red beak. Sexual dimorphism in nuthatches is poorly expressed, but still in some species the male can be distinguished from the female.

The vast majority of nuthatches live in forests. These are typically arboreal birds. The way of life of all species is similar: birds gather food on the trunks and large branches of trees, deftly climbing up and down the bark up and down their heads, pecking from the surface and picking out insects and their larvae, spiders and other invertebrates from cracks and cracks. In autumn, they begin to feed on the seeds of nut trees: oaks, beeches, cedars, hazel and other plants. They nest in hollows, smearing the notch with clay mixed with saliva.

Some species of nuthatch have adapted to live in the mountains. In the countries of the Caucasus adjacent to Russia and in the mountains of Central Asia, in the Pamirs and the Central Tien Shan, two very close species live: small rocky (S. neu-mayer) - in the mountains of Armenia and Transcaucasia, and big rocky nuthatch (S. tephronota) - in North-Eastern Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, in the Pamirs and Tien Shan. Previously, these nuthatches were considered only subspecies of the rocky nuthatch, now they were divided into two independent species and instead of “rocky” they began to be called “rocky”, which is absolutely correct, because the area can be “rocky”, and not the birds living in it. Life among the rocks left its mark on the habits and behavior of these mountain birds, outwardly very similar to their forest counterparts. If nuthatches usually lead a nomadic lifestyle from autumn, flying through the forests along with tits and other birds, then rock nuthatches, living in the mountains at an altitude of up to 3000 m, descend into the valleys in winter, appearing in villages and sometimes descending on tree trunks.

Mountain species nest in rock crevices. If the crack is narrow, only the entrance with a narrow entrance is smeared with clay, but if the cavity between the stones is spacious enough, the nuthatch constructs a complex clay structure, similar to a jug, with a narrow entrance in the form of a pipe about 6 cm long and 3 cm in diameter. At the same time, the bird smears the elytra and other parts of large beetles into the clay. For nesting litter, the rock nuthatch often collects the hair of small rodents, choosing it from the pellets of birds of prey.

Nuthatches have such a characteristic appearance and behavior that it is difficult to confuse them with other birds that can climb tree trunks or sheer stone cliffs. But, despite the external dissimilarity and ethological and ecological differences, the inhabitants of the mountains of Eurasia, red-winged wall climbers, are often included in the nuthatch family ( Tichodroma), living in India and Africa spotted pikas ( Salpornis) and Philippine pikas ( Rhabdornis). Previously, they were included (and are often included now) in the pika family ( Certhiidae). But the sitells living in Australia and New Guinea ( neositta), more than others both in appearance and in the manner of climbing and foraging, resembling nuthatch and previously considered their relatives, are now usually distinguished into a special family neosittidae. Without entering into a debate with taxonomists, let's take a brief look at all these birds.

In addition to the nuthatch, there is another bird in our forests that can move along smooth trunks - pika. She also does not leave her native places and wanders through the forests all winter along with tits, nuthatches and other birds. But if the nuthatch, thanks to the loud voice and active behavior, is very easy to detect, then the pika can not be seen at all, even if you watch the feeding flock for a long time - this bird behaves so quietly and imperceptibly. When, wanting to get to know a pika, you find a flock of birds in a spruce forest, the first thing that will most likely attract your attention is chickadees - chubby gray-white tits with matte black caps. There are usually a lot of them in a flock, and they are always on the move: either they jump along the branches of a young aspen, examining it from all sides, then they fall to the ground or snow, pick at rotten leaves or peck mosquitoes or random seeds of spruces and pines from snowdrifts. You will also see other tits: crested grenadiers brownish on top with high gray tufts on their heads; small dark-colored Muscovites with a light spot on the back of the head - these prefer to examine shaggy spruce paws. Hear the already familiar “two-two” and look with your eyes for a nuthatch jumping along a thick branch or moving along the trunk. The great spotted woodpecker, which often accompanies tit flocks, will give itself away with a voice or soft tapping.

But where is the pika that you so wanted to see? Be patient and be careful. Here, some small, inconspicuously colored bird silently flashed behind the trees and sank onto the trunk of a fir tree near the ground. And suddenly she crawled up the trunk, rising higher and higher. This is the pika. The bird is very small. And although the length of her body is about 14 cm, i.e. the same as that of the nuthatch, this is only due to the long beak and the tail, which is longer than that of the nuthatch. And the mass of the pika is only about 8.5 g. It is almost three times lighter than the nuthatch.

To be continued