I have my brother-in-law to thank for this life bird. I haven’t spent much time in the South other than a few trips to the Florida Everglades, so I never got a chance to see a Brown-headed Nuthatch. My brother-in-law Erik has a bird feeder behind their house in central Tennessee. He and his family enjoy watching the birds come in and are becoming more and more familiar with the regular visitors.
Erik was stumped by one bird that was coming regularly and asked my mother-in-law Merritt what she thought it could be. Merritt is knowledgeable about all sorts of wildlife and produced a bird field guide for him to browse though. From his verbal description she thought it was a nuthatch.
Erik looked through the field guide and said, “It looks like this guy,” pointing to the Brown-headed Nuthatch. Though not impossible to locate in Tennessee, they are usually found among old pines in the hilly southern portion of the state near Chattanooga. They are rarely seen in middle Tennessee, but it turns out that there has been a small population living in the old pines surrounding the golf course near Erik’s house. Not a bad yard bird!
Knowing I’d be headed his way soon, I asked Erik how often he sees them, expecting to hear almost never. He said they usually visit the feeder every morning and sporadically throughout the day. Talk about spoiled. Sure enough, on our visit the Brown-headed Nuthatches showed up right on schedule. I was prepared with the 400mm lens, and I got some decent shots to draw from. What an easy was to get a lifer—while eating breakfast, with a cup of tea in one hand and binoculars in the other.
I was impressed with just how small and cute they are. The toy squeaker call they make only adds their appeal. Sadly, these little guys are hitting tough times and have dropped in population by almost half in the last fifty years.
Leave a Reply