Pygmy nuthatch - just a little bundle of fun

Pygmy nuthatch with ant at Kaloya Park, Winfield.

It must have been a family brood that I saw the other day while visiting Kaloya Regional Park.  As I walked along a well-worn path, I came upon a group of small birds quickly flitting from branch to branch in the branches of conifer trees.  The peeping sounds seemed infectious as the group weaved through myriad branches searching for food.  Photographing them proved challenging as remaining still f was not one of their strong characteristics.

I encountered the same group on different days within the confines of the peninsula.  It was a pleasure to watch the little balls of fluff meandering through the canopy.  They rarely came down to eye level with me, instead staying high up in the branches.  I had to patiently watch and look for an opportunity to photograph one of them when the angle, light, lack of obstructions, and camera focus all came together.  I took 27 photos over the two encounters and got a couple of good shots; I liked this one the best as it shows the nuthatch with a small prize in its beak.

The website All About Birds has a great paragraph on their behaviour.  I am including the paragraph below, you can see it in its original form here.

"Pygmy Nuthatches are cooperative breeders: about one third of breeding pairs get help raising their young from 1–3 male relatives. These are often the breeding pair’s own sons from previous years; they help defend the nest and feed incubating females and chicks. To deter squirrels, Pygmy Nuthatches may sway threateningly from side to side or even cover the entrance with their bodies to make it less visible. In winter, multiple family groups join up to form large, chattering, highly social flocks that range over a foraging territory. These flocks also forage with other species including warblers, chickadees, bushtits, kinglets, woodpeckers, and juncos. In cold weather they seek out well-insulated cavities to spend the night. Pairs roost together and juveniles roost with their parents as part of larger groups. Sometimes more than 150 individuals sleep in a single tree, stacked up in squares, triangles, diamonds, oblongs, or tiers of birds. They use controlled hypothermia in addition to group roosting to withstand cold winter nights, a combination of strategies used by only one other North American bird species, the Vaux's Swift."

Cool little birds.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com