The tender deference of the male to his mate and the harmony that exists between them, more noticeable in winter than when the nuptial ecstasies are in full swing, wins the admiration of those who still believe in the virtue of fidelity amid the present uproar of divorce and sex hilarity.
Two birds will search for food, apparently indifferent to each other's presence, when one drags a fat cocoon from its cache and gives it a vigorous thrashing against a limb. In this strenuous performance the bird exerts itself tremendously, raising its body by momentarily uplifted wings at each stroke. The fortunate discoverer seems quite absorbed in the macerating struggle, yet if the mate is not in sight, the intent bird will stop and call musically and cherrily, — here-here-here-here-here, until they are together; meeting with tremulous wing spreadings.
When nesting time approaches both are aware that sounding their little trumpets would betray the home location, yet when incubation starts the male seems to forget this caution. His call resounds loudly even when far from home. At this home life period both Nuthatches are as unsophisticated as a human couple; betraying their mutual tenderness by calls, wheedlings and caresses. Among the untranslatable cries of both sexes is a curious, soft, long drawn "tay-turt" repeated four times by the male and so closely resembling a call of the Pinyon Jay that one could easily believe it an imitation.
The material surrounding the eggs is a strange conglomerate, mainly disintegrated pellets ejected by birds of prey or voided by coyotes, and is added at irregular intervals after the home site has been selected. The female is the home enlarger and brings additional material as late as mid incubation time. When she comes out to accept a food dainty from her mate she takes a little "look around," ruffling feathers and twisting tail rectices and uttering ventriloquial evidences of satisfaction. She will suddenly return to her precious eggs from her straying, bearing a wad of pellet hair so big that she drops it outside the door! Normally the female is a close sitter tho sometimes she will leave the nest while the intruder is far away and will continue wild even after her mate has shown his contempt for mere man by entering the home under his nose.
While striving to reach the nest of Whitethroated Swifts in a forty foot cliff I discovered a pair of Nuthatches feeding young in a dead cedar. The parents seemed more curious than resentful of my presence, even when I climbed the sacred tree. At five minute intervals they came with food and it was amusing to watch their stealthy approach to the cavity. They would pitch their courage to the entering point; actually put head and neck into the hollow and then execute a rightabout in an eye twinkle. This might happen a dozen times before the performer completed the act!
They share the trait of curiosity with their eastern relatives and one sunny winter day in Wyoming I found a medley of Crossbills, Chickadees and Juncos mobbing a Rocky Mountain Screech Owl while a pair of Nuthatches joined in the outcries discreetly from the ground. —Peabody.
Interior of North America. Breeds mainly in Transition zone from southern British Columbia, central Alberta and western Manitoba south to Mexico and from eastern Cascades east across Rocky Mountains.