Y is for Yellowhammer

YELLOWHAMMER (EMBERIZA CITRINELLA)

This sunflower yellow bunting compliments a balmy summer’s evening in a British field, when the males belt their song from high perches.  For many listeners, their reedy song is reminiscent of past country life.

Yellowhammers Emberiza citrinella get their name from the male’s bright plumage, with a yellow head and breast and streaky chestnut wings and body. As usual, the female is a bit plainer, but there is still a sunny glow within her streaky brown camouflage. As for the ‘hammer’, this is believed to originate from their Anglo-Saxon name “Amor”, and following old English “Amer” with the yellow a later descriptive addition ^1,2.

The yellowhammer’s reedy, breathless song is famous for the mnemonic  “ a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no cheese”, made public through Enid Blyton’s children’s books³.  Though the song falls a little short, the phrase captures the tumbling notes and finishing wheeze. The male sits proudly on the tallest perch he can find to broadcast his ownership of his territory, repeating his song long into the summer.


Yellowhammers are birds of field and pasture, namely where there are hedgerows for sheltering, singing and nesting. Their summer song provides a traditional soundtrack for the harvest season. Though characterising the warmer months, they are surprisingly winter hardy for a small bird⁴, when they feed in flocks taking advantage of spilt grain and wild plant seeds. Yellowhammers are truly a farmland bird, and their small range keeps them faithful to the fields⁵.

But they are of course found in wilder places, in rough grassland, heaths and scrub. They are more associated with these habitats in the West, exemplified by Their Welsh name is Melyn yr Eithin-“Yellow bird of the gorse”². They may also roost in reedbeds alongside their cousin the reed bunting E. schoeniclus and are occasional visitors to rural garden bird tables in winter when food is scarce⁵.

The yellowhammer’s main diet is seeds, including cereals, though they are not a serious pest. They exploit human offerings of grain from gamebird and livestock feeding stations and historically, leftovers from the harvest which may provide a winter lifeline.  They also eat berries and around a third of their diet is large, juicy insects such as grasshoppers, beetles and caterpillars, which the adults also rely on to feed their chicks⁵.

Courtship is a complex game for male yellowhammers. Instead of strutting his stuff like many cock birds, he gives up his usual dominant position over females and starts to play cat and mouse with his chosen mate. He follows her and bounces around vying for attention, but with every annoyed retort by the female, makes a mock retreat before resuming his chase back and forth⁶.

Yellowhammers nest on or near the ground, often at the base of hedgerows, amongst bramble or other scrubby plants. The outer cup is woven from dry grass and the favoured lining is horse hair, meaning the couple sometimes travel far out of their territory to find a paddock or stables⁷*.

Their four beige eggs are painted with chocolate brown squiggles to break up their outline, earning one of their older names “Scribble lark”¹. Yellowhammers produce up to three broods a year³, the latest being most important for building numbers when winters are milder⁷.

Unfortunately, yellowhammers are not increasing . Though once widespread, they have followed the decline of other farmland birds.  Removal  and improper management of hedgerows, leaving short, sparse bushes that offer little cover, different timings and increased efficiency of harvesting and storage leaving little spilt grain in the winter and pesticides, herbicides and intensive pasture management have left fields bare of insects and weed seeds. Yellowhammers have sadly decreased by over 50% between 1970 and 2010 as farms become less hospitable⁵. There is also little of their natural habitat left to go back to, since much of our farmland was originally converted from grassland or heathland.

But it may not be all doom and gloom for this sunshine bird, since yellowhammers greatly benefit from agri-environment management schemes that encourage the maintenance of species-rich field margins, traditional hedgerow management, and sowing bird seed plots to provide winter food^{8, 9}. Trials show that even if these are adopted on scattered farms, they benefit yellowhammer populations in the wider landscape⁸.

Though we’ll never completely go back to past farming techniques, with beauty and charm on it’s side, the yellowhammer is a great candidate for farmland conservation. With a little help, it’s cheesy song could remain soundtrack of the British countryside.

*Before human agriculture, yellowhammers would have sought hair from wild horses Equus ferus which lived in Europe until the early 20^th century.

References

1-  Fransesca Greenoak. (1979) All the Birds of the Air. A. Brown and Sons.

2- Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey. (2005) Birds Britannica. London, Chatto and Windus
3- R.A. Robinson. (2005) BTO BirdFacts: profiles of birds occurring in Britain & Ireland: Yellowhammer Emberiza citrinella   [Linnaeus, 1758]. (BTO Research Report 407). BTO, Thetford. Available from:  http://blx1.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob18570.htm

4- Peter Holden and J.T.R. Sharrock. (1988) The RSPB Book of British Birds. London, Papermac.

5- Peter Holden and Tim Cleeves. (2010) RSPB Handbook of British Birds (Third Edition). London, A&C Black.

6-  Margaret Bastock. (1967) Courtship: An Ethological Study. Chicago, Aldine Publication Co. Available from: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BJd94aGwhCgC&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=yellowhammer+courtship&source=bl&ots=uf87vVDDjv&sig=81VE5P0Bo6AMmOmhP4ZIagDKbGI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FqPFUsm6G4iShgfX7oCIDg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=yellowhammer%20courtship&f=false

7- John Welford. (2010) Facts about yellowhammers. Available from: http://www.critters360.com/index.php/facts-about-yellowhammers-8827/

8- RSPB. (2009) Farming: Advice for Farmers: Yellowhammer. Available from http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/farming/advice/details.aspx?id=204089

9-RSPB. (No date) Our work: Projects: Yellowhammer Recovery Project. Available from: http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/projects/details/220835-yellowhammer-recovery-project#achievements

V is for Vanellus

LAPWING (VANELLUS VANELLUS)

Lapwings Vanellus vanellus  are beautiful birds, with a stately figure and sweet rounded face topped off with a whisp of a headcrest. They appear pied, but to call them black and white would be an understatement, since their wings iridesce with green, purple and bronze. A flock of lapwings flashing dark and light as they twist and turn is a sight to behold, and one of my favourite childhood memories was watching these flocks descend on fields in my hometown.

The lapwing’s flight, with sweeping strokes of its distinctive broad wings earned it both its scientific name, meaning a ‘a waving fan’¹ and the common name, from the Old English ‘Hleapewince’ to leap with a waver². Their aerial prowess peaks in spring when males show off in tumbling display flights whilst giving their unusual  call, giving it it’s other common name the ‘Peewit’ (Though I’d personally translate it as ‘peao-wee’).

Lapwings are a familiar site in the British countryside, commonly encountered in open areas from moors and marshes to sheep pasture and ploughed fields.  Here they indulge their habit of plucking invertebrates off the ground, feeding in a teetering motion.

 It seems that lapwings are faring well in Britain, but unfortunately this is not the case. The numbers of adult birds, which live for over ten years, are masking a poor breeding success.

Breeding lapwings need open areas with short vegetation where they can dig a nest scrape and look out for predators, alongside insect-rich areas nearby for the chicks to feed. Naturally, lapwings nest in marshy habitats, but with the take-over of agriculture spring-sown cereal fields became choice habitat, especially in mixed farms with food-rich pastureland nearby. 

In the past, the lapwing had made a success in Britain’s agricultural landscape, but as goes the story for many farmland birds, increased agricultural efficiency and changes in land use have not been in their favour. From around the 1960’s, drainage of wet fields, decreases in mixed farming, ‘improvements’ of pastureland reducing their insect life, and switching from spring to autumn sowing have contributed to a shocking 50% decline in breeding lapwings since 1985³. It is now an RSPB red status species.

Lapwing conservation presents special problems since they don’t always benefit from measures for other farmland birds. For example, hedgerows which provide food and shelter for songbirds also act as highways for lapwing nest predators such as foxes and stoats.  Special ‘lapwing plots’ in cropped fields also benefit  smaller birds⁴.

Lapwings begin breeding in March. The male makes several scrapes lined with grass or leaves and the female chooses where to lay her eggs.  The eggs are a mottled brown, concealing them against the ground and the downy, bobble-headed chicks are equally well camouflaged. Both parents care for the eggs and chicks and are very defensive of the nest. They will give aerial chase to any corvid or raptor that gets too close, and will distract ground predators by loudly calling, fluttering and even feigning injury away from the nest. This has earned the lapwing a deceitful reputation, famously observed by Chaucer who refers to the “false lapwynge, ful of treacherye” in his poem ‘The Assembly of Fowls’, and is established in their collective noun, a deceit of lapwing.

Whilst the adults go on the defensive, the chicks respond to threat by lying low and making like a pebble. If they are discovered, they can run away just minutes after hatching, with the charming side effect of scampering off still stuck with eggshell ². Shakespeare draws on this behaviour in Hamlet, when Horatio refers to young Osric getting ideas above his station “The lapwing runs with shell on his head”. These curiously astute observations of rare behaviour stem from the past practice of harvesting lapwing eggs².

After breeding, lapwings may move about depending on the weather. Small flocks arrive from Northern Europe in June swelling numbers through to winter, whilst British breeders may fly as far south as Spain in harsh winters ^3,5.

History has shown that the fate of the lapwing is interlinked with that of the British countryside. It would be a great shame to lose this culturally and visually enigmatic bird from our landscape. Hopes lie with our farmers and agrienvironmentalists to keep the peewits calling evermore.

References

1- R.A. Robinson. (2005) BTO BirdFacts: profiles of birds occurring in Britain & Ireland: Lapwing Vanellus vanellus   [Linnaeus, 1758]. (BTO Research Report 407). BTO, Thetford. Available from: http://blx1.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob4930.htm

2- Fransesca Greenoak. (1979) All the Birds of the Air. A. Brown and Sons.

3- Peter Holden and Tim Cleeves. (2010) RSPB Handbook of British Birds (Third Edition). London, A&C Black.

4- D. Chamberlain, S. Gough, G. Anderson, M. Macdonald, P. Grice and J.Vickery.(2009)Bird use of cultivated fallow 'Lapwing plots' within English agrienvironment schemes. Bird Study 56, 289-297.Summary available from: http://www.bto.org/sites/default/files/u31/downloads/details/lapwingsinplots.pdf

5- Peter Holden and J.T.R. Sharrock. (1988) The RSPB Book of British Birds. London, Papermac. 

R is for Redwing

REDWING (TURDUS ILIACUS) 

From a summer migrant (Q is for Quail) we move to a more topical winter migrant, the Redwing Turdus iliacus. The smallest of our ‘true thrushes’ (from the genus Turdus), the redwing arrives to Britain in droves from the forests of Northern Europe, seeking out our richer winter larder.

Walking home on a crisp autumn night, you may be surprised to hear a soft “tseep” from the skies above. This is the sound of redwing migrating under cover of darkness. During the day it is easy to identify flocks of redwing by their size (A little larger than a robin) and their plumage patterns. They are darker than a song thrush Turdus philomelos , with a mahogany upperside, pale eyebrows, white, speckled chest and of course red underwings and flanks. Another flocking winter migrant thrush is the Fieldfare Turdus pilaris which is much larger with different plumage (The difference is explained in this video by the BTO).

Redwings are renowned berry-guzzlers. Scattered along a hedgerow or fruiting tree, they gulp down berries of hawthorn, rowan, and holly, sometimes creating quite a festive scene amongst the frosted, berry-laden branches. The arrival of redwings is much to the chagrin of Mistle Thrushes Turdus viscivorous, which stake out their own berried bush for the winter and fruitlessly attempt to guard it against the onslaught of their smaller cousins.  Redwings sometimes visit gardens in harsher weather where there are pickings of ornamental berry bushes such as cotoneaster and pyracanthus or handouts of fruit like apples. The orchards of the West Midlands are an important feeding area for redwings to stock up on windfall apples¹.

But redwings won’t pass up the opportunity for something meatier and can often be seen hopping across playing fields and farmland in search of worms. They will also split up and rummage through woodland leaf-litter for insects, especially when it is too cold and windy to be out in the open². Redwings are well camouflaged against the woodland carpet, and their reaction to predators is often to sit still and make like a leaf³. When startled in the open, redwings head for cover in trees or bushes.

There are actually two races of redwing that visit Britain. The slightly paler  Scandinavian race T. iliacus iliacus, winter in Southern Britain, whereas the darker, streakier Icelandic race T.iliacus corburni  winter around Scotland and Ireland ^2,4. Of course there is some overlap , especially since redwings are not site-faithful at all during the winter and will move around depending on the weather and food availability, going south in harsher conditions ^1,3. Scandinavian birds sometimes fly all the way down to North Africa².

Some Icelandic birds don’t even bother going home, and actually breed in Northern Scotland ^1,4. This was first noticed in 1932 and numbers grew to around 80 pairs in the early 80’s, but have since fallen to less than 20 ^1,4. This small breeding population is why redwings have a red RSPB conservation status in the UK². It may be novel, but the over 1000 strong winter migrant population⁴ is perhaps a more important concern.

Wintering birds have also shown signs of decline, with lessreports of spectacular communal roosts². Perhaps this is because there are less fruiting hedges in our countryside. Even those that still exist are often cut too often by flailing to allow berry production.

As the colder seasons set in, look out for this winter special, that is perhaps more festive than our resident robin. Lay out a few apples in your garden as a helping hand to our winter thrushes and you may be lucky enough to be visited by a party of handsome redwing.

References

1- Graham Appleton. (2012) Bird of the Month: Redwing. BTO. Available from: http://www.bto.org/about-birds/bird-of-month/redwing

2- Mike Toms. (2010) The Wanderer Returns: REDWING. Bird Table, 64, 14-16. Available from: http://www.bto.org/sites/default/files/shared_documents/gbw/associated_files/bird-table-64-redwing-article.pdf

3- Dominic Couzens. (2012) Garden Birds Confidential. Bounty Books.

4- Peter Holden and Tim Cleeves. (2010) RSPB Handbook of British Birds (Third Edition). London, A&C Black.

Q is for Quail

QUAIL (COTURNIX COTURNIX)

At just 17 centimetres long, the quail (Coturnix coturnix)is our smallest and sweetest gamebird. It is also one of the most rarely seen.

The quail’s streaky buff, tan and chocolate markings provide excellent cryptic camouflage in the grassland habitats they favour. Their low stature and secretive habits help keep their cover. Males can be located by their distinctive “whip whip whip” call, often described as ‘wet my lips’ which they will shout out day and night. If you do see one, males are subtly different from females, with bolder, darker chin markings, whilst juveniles are plain-faced.

Despite being a weak flier, quails are our only migratory gamebird, arriving here to breed in spring and summer (April to September) from the warmer climes of North and Central Africa. In keeping with their secrecy, they fly under cover of darkness to avoid hawks and other birds of prey.

Unlike the swallow Hirundo rustica or the cuckoo Cuculus canorus though, quails are not reliable visitors to Britain. They reach our islands sporadically, in varying numbers each year.  They are never particularly common in Britain, with the usual number of just 100-300 pairs reaching up to around 2,600 in good ‘Quail years”¹.  Notable quail years have included  1970, 1983, 1989 and 2005¹. Quails are classed as a ‘rare breeding bird’ by the BTO, so any records are notable².

However, quail migration does follow an interesting pattern. The first wave of migrants arrive in April to May, breeding through to June and July, when the second wave arrives. The reason for this is simple, yet remarkable. The second wave are the first brood of youngsters from North Africa (Sired by parents from Central Africa). Meanwhile, young quails hatched in Britain migrate into Northern Europe².  This feat is possible because of the quail’s fast growth rate; juveniles have the strength to migrate at 2 months old and can breed at just 3 months ^2,3! This leapfrogging migration pattern is has more in common with butterflies, such as the painted lady Vanessa cardui than other birds.

You might think with such a high breeding rate, quails would be very numerous. In fact
Whilst captive quails have grown in popularity for their eggs, meat and as pets, their wild cousins are steadily declining. A number of factors are to blame for this, from habitat loss due to changes in farming practices and losses of semi-natural grassland, to droughts in their African wintering grounds and hunting in the Mediterranean³.

Of these, hunting is the most pressing conservation concern. Quails are strictly protected under the European Union’s Birds Directive, but illegal spring shooting and trapping continues on their migration through the Mediterranean, which selectively removes hundreds of breeding birds^4,5. Malta in particular is criticised for this practice, banned by the Government in 2009 but reopened in 2011 with annually increasing quail quotas⁵. Outside of Europe, such as in the Middle-East, quail shooting is also a popular sport and a tourism venture. Considering the small numbers arriving in Britain each year, this is a clear conservation issue and the fact that all but one of the BTO’s notable quail ringing recoveries were from shot birds is not surprising⁶.

Surprisingly then, the quail was a historically unpopular gamebird, rarely eaten at British banquets which featured so many other species⁷. The reason is not their small size but their toxicity.  The flesh of some quails is made bitter and poisonous by their habit of eating toxic plants-such as spurge- on migration^7,8. Apparently, only birds from East Africa are affected, but since the populations mix in the breeding grounds, it wasn’t considered worth the lottery. Quail poisoning , or “coturnism” was so common it has been mentioned in the Bible (Numbers 11:31-34) when the Israelites ate quail in Sinai, and eating quail was banned by the Romans in the first century. This makes the quail one of only five known poisonous birds⁸.

They may be small, but the quail’s secretive lifestyle hides some big secrets.  It’s clear that this unique gamebird deserves more protection if we want to hear them in our island’s summer fields in future years.



References

1-Chris Mead. (2000) Quail (Common Quail). The State of the Nations Birds. Available from: http://www.birdcare.com/bin/showsonb?quail

2-Dawn Balmer . (2009) Quail - the Painted Lady of the bird world? Available from: http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=1690

3- Peter Holden and Tim Cleeves. (2010) RSPB Handbook of British Birds (Third Edition). London, A&C Black.

4- Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS). (2010) Spring Hunting on Malta: Hunters have no sense  of 'sustainability'.  Available from: http://www.komitee.de/en/actions-and-projects/malta/spring-hunting

5-Charlie Moors. (2012) BirdLife Malta: ““Malta Taking Commission for a Ride”. Talking Naturally. Available from: http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/birdlife-malta-malta-taking-commission-for-a-ride/

6- R.A. Robinson and J.A. Clark. (2013) The Online Ringing Report: Bird ringing in Britain & Ireland in 2012. Summary of all Ringing Recoveries for Quail (Coturnix coturnix). Available from: http://blx1.bto.org/ring/countyrec/resultsall/rec3700all.htm

7-  Fransesca Greenoak. (1979) All the Birds of the Air. A. Brown and Sons.

8-Dr Stefan Bartram and Professor Wilhelm Boland. (2001) Chemistry and ecology of toxic birds. ChemBioChem, 2, 809-811. In: Darren Naish. (2010) Death by toxic goose. Amazing waterfowl facts part II. Tetrapod Zoology. Available from: http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/06/19/death-by-toxic-goose/

O is for Oystercatcher

OYSTERCATCHER (HAEMATOPUS OSTRALEGUS)

The Oystercatcher Haemotopus ostralegus is a very recognisable wader, with striking black and white plumage, scarlet bill and bright pink legs (the name Haematopus means ‘blood foot’¹, odd considering their beak and eyes are redder). They’re also one of the most common and easily seen, flying in loudly-peeping groups between feeding and roosting areas. 

Oystercatchers live in many coastal habitats, from rocky cliff bases to muddy estuaries across the British shoreline. Within the past 30 years some have moved inland upriver to gravel pits, flashes (shallow pools), and pasture, a phenomenon first noticed in Scotland². Some have even followed the example of urban gulls, nesting in cities and feeding in playing fields.

Oystercatchers are misnamed. Their original name was ‘Sea-pie’ after their pied feathers. Their current title is an Americanism, from the naming of its cousin the American Oystercatcher H. palliatus in 1731, which eats small oysters³.  Our oystercatchers rarely, if ever eat oysters, but they do enjoy shellfish, especially mussels. Another appropriate older name is ‘mussel cracker’³. Or it would be if they all cracked them...
 
The oystercatchers’ showy beak is very powerful *, allowing them to deal with hard-shelled prey, but their feeding habits differ. Some are ‘crackers’ or ‘hammerers’, bashing the shell until it smashes, whilst others are ‘stabbers’ prising the shells apart at the seam^1,2,4. Their tools match their trade, stabbers having slimmer, flattened beaks and hammerers being shorter and thicker. Still others are worm-eaters with thin, pointed bills for probing their burrows⁴.

These types have puzzled ornithologists since the 1960’s. They were once thought to be learned through generations. Unlike other waders which feed themselves from day one, Oystercatchers teach their offspring how to eat. The parents can be devoted teachers, spending over 6 months schooling their young. However, oystercatchers nesting inland often leave for the coast before their young can fly with them so their habits cannot just be learned⁵.

The truth is even more fascinating. Oystercatchers can switch their diets and are able to change their beak shape within days!  This is thanks to their beak growing at three times the rate of human fingernails, so it responds quickly to wear and pressures (Just like our muscles and bone build up through strain and tear). In a captive experiment, it took just 10 days for the beaks of mussel hammerers to change to worm-eater form when their diet was switched. This makes the oystercatcher very adaptable and able to exploit whatever prey is available⁴.

As well as molluscs and worms, oystercatchers also eat insect larvae, shrimps, crabs, small fish and even occasionally the eggs and chicks of small gulls (Though I could not find the original reference for this-see comments reference  4).
They don’t always catch their own food, often stealing from smaller waders. Some are professional pirates, getting 60% of their food from other birds⁶. But the world is not their oyster, as black-headed gulls Choriocephalus ridibundus and even juvenile oystercatchers steal ready-opened molluscs from the stronger adults⁴.

Oystercatchers nest in bare scrapes on a prominent feature such as a rock or in the open on shingle or short grass where they can easily spot predators and their pebble-like eggs are camouflaged. Urban oystercatchers take advantage of gravelled areas, including flat roofs.

Males protect the nest and are a force to be reckoned with. They react quickly to any passing nest predator, be it gull, corvid, raptor or human, flying up and chasing them away whilst shouting abuse. Other birds don’t want to get involved with the powerful beak.  When I visited Skomer Island with friends in summer, oystercatchers were constantly setting off after the many gulls and Buzzards Buteo buteo.  However, gull predation still greatly limits breeding success⁷.

Not all chicks are lucky enough to have their parent’s protection, since oystercatchers sometimes ‘egg dump’ –laying their eggs in the nest of another, like a gull. Whilst the female probably hopes her chick will be reared by its adopted parents like a cuckoo, its chances of survival are slim⁸.

Chicks that do survive to adulthood may live long and prosper. Some oystercatchers have been recorded at 30-40 years old^1,4.

Oystercatchers are certainly a unique wader. This pied piper of our shorelines may be common and  perhaps taken for granted, but is hugely adaptable and intriguing

*In fact, it has the heaviest beak of all living waders.

References

 

1- R.A. Robinson.(2005) BTO BirdFacts: profiles of birds occurring in Britain & Ireland: Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus   [Linnaeus, 1758]. Available from: http://blx1.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob4500.htm

2- Peter Holden and J.T.R. Sharrock. (1989) The RSPB book of British Birds. PAPERMAC, London.

3- Fransesca Greenoak. (1979) All the Birds of the Air. A. Brown and Sons.

4- Darren Naish. (2010) The incredible bill of the oystercatcher. Tetrapod Zoology. Available from: http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/07/11/incredible-bill-of-oystercatcher/

5-William.J. Sutherland. (1987) Why do animals specialize? Nature 325, 483-484. Cited by: Darren Naish. (2010) The incredible bill of the oystercatcher. Tetrapod Zoology. Available from: http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/07/11/incredible-bill-of-oystercatcher/

6- Nicholas Hammond and Bruce Pearson. (1994) Waders. Hamlyn, London. Cited by: Darren Naish. (2010) The incredible bill of the oystercatcher. Tetrapod Zoology. Available from: http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/07/11/incredible-bill-of-oystercatcher/

7-M.P. Harris and S.Wanless. (1997) The effect of removing large numbers of gulls Larus spp. on an island population of oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus: Implications for management. Biological Conservation 82 (2), Pages 167–171. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320797000190

8- Science Daily and Dr Clive Craik. (2011). Birds Dumping Eggs On the Neighbors. Available from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110524203605.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

See also Mike Mottram’s entry on filming an urban oystercatcher nest in ‘Diaries of a Cheshire Wildlife Watcher’

N is for Nuthatch

NUTHATCH (SITTA EUROPAEA)

With its powder blue upperside, blended cream and rusty orange underside and charcoal bandit mask , the Nuthatch Sitta europaea looks as if it has been coloured with pastilles, but is surprisingly difficult to see in its shady habitat. The nuthatch is truly a woodland bird, and with good reason. Like a woodpecker (which it resembles) it finds food on and under tree bark, hopping up, down and around the trunk and branches in search of insects. The nuthatch is the only British bird capable of climbing down a tree trunk head first. They achieve this through not relying on their tail as a prop, as woodpeckers and treecreepers Certhia familiaris do, and by having especially large, strong feet which they position one behind the other to act as a pivot and support¹.

The nuthatch reveals itself by its insistent piping call or the crackling sound of it pecking and peeling bark. Even then, they are difficult to keep track of as they scoot and weave behind the tree in and out of view.  However, they are quite tame and will call or feed a couple of meters away.

The nuthatch also eats seeds and nuts in autumn and winter when insects become scarce, cracking them by shoving them into a bark crevice and thrusting down with its powerful beak. This habit earned them their original, more powerful name ‘Nut hacker’ which has since become corrupted².

Nuthatches are partial to peanuts and seeds from garden feeders and bird tables, where they aggressively chase off other small birds, especially other nuthatches. Though they are increasingly seen in gardens where they are most easily observed, they only visit those near woodlands. Nuthatches stay very close to their birthplace, and even patches of suitable natural woodland may not be colonised if they are too far from others³. However, nuthatches are slowly moving North with warmer British weather, and were first recorded breeding in Scotland in 1989⁴

Perhaps because they don’t move far and because they nest in scarce tree holes, territory is very important to nuthatches. Neighbouring pairs have frequent stand-offs. Usually these are just posturing, but sometimes they escalate into fights when their beaks often inflict serious injury or death⁴.  Juvenile nuthatches have to wait in the wings in low-quality territories until a position in a breeding territory becomes available⁵. Though they are a small bird and reach adulthood at just 1 year, nuthatches have been recorded at 7 years old⁶.

Nuthatches are crafty birds. They store seeds and nuts for the winter by pushing them into gaps in tree bark or wood. Come nesting time, they will plug up their nest hole with mud, which hardens like concrete until only their bodies can pass through. This keeps out nest predators such as woodpeckers and competitors like starlings Sturnus vulgaris, but they can be over-enthusiatic, filling up the joins in nestboxes and even encasing them entirely ^1,3!
 I have also once seen one of a pair of nuthatches in Worcester use a piece of bark to prise off another part and wondered if this counted as tool use. This behaviour (this time with a small stick) has been photographed before.  Its American relative, the brown-headed nuthatch is renowned for using tools in a similar way.

Next time you’re in a woodland, make an effort to listen out for this agile and crafty character around a tree trunk near you.

References

1- Dominic Couzens. (2012) Garden Birds Confidential. Bounty Books.

2- Fransesca Greenoak. (1979) All the Birds of the Air. A. Brown and Sons.

3- Peter Holden and J.T.R. Sharrock. (1989) The RSPB book of British Birds. PAPERMAC, London.

4-Tim Harrison and Mike Toms. (2012) BTO Garden Bird of the Month – November: Nuthatch. Available from: http://www.discoverwildlife.com/blog/bto-garden-bird-month-%E2%80%93-november-nuthatch

5- Erik Matthysen.(1990) Behavioural and ecological correlates of territory quality in the Eurasian Nuthatch (Sitta europaea). The Auk, 107 (1), 86-95. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4087805?uid=3738032&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102756365933

6- R.A. Robinson.(2005) BTO BirdFacts: profiles of birds occurring in Britain & Ireland: Nuthatch Sitta europaea Available from: http://blx1.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob14790.htm