11.01.26: Nuthatch and seed

‍I have a number of photos of White-breasted Nuthatches in my files, but this one is a bit different. The reason: The bird is upright.

‍Most of my other nuthatch photos show the bird facing down, clinging to the bark of a tree.

‍Nuthatches spend their day climbing up and down the trunks of trees looking for insects hiding in the bark. When facing down, they will often “pose” — positioning their head and body at a 90-degree angle to the tree trunk — to get a good look at their surroundings.

‍That's the perfect time to get a photo of a nuthatch.

‍When I see a nuthatch moving down a tree trunk, I quickly focus on the bird and track it, waiting for it to look around. The preparation and anticipation allow me to get photographs showing the typical behavior of nuthatches.

‍But this photo required a different kind of preparation.

‍I was shooting in a park west of Columbus, Ohio, on an October morning and paused to watch a field. I was hoping some of goldfinches or sparrows flying around would land in a spot where I could get a clear photo. I was about to give up and move down the trail a ways when this nuthatch flew from a tree and landed on a plant stem that stood higher than neighboring plants. I first noticed that the setting was perfect: nothing blocking the view between the camera and the bird, and the stem was far enough from the forest in the background to created an uncluttered background.

‍That’s when I noticed the nuthatch was carrying a seed, or maybe a fragment of a nut. Excellent!

‍I grabbed a couple of shots, timing it so the bird was in perfect profile and the seed was visible. Then the bird flew back to the tree.

‍The nuthatch gets its name from its unusual feeding technique. The birds jam acorns and other large nuts into tree bark, then whack them with their sharp bill. That hatches the seed from inside the nut.