The Masked Singer

It's been a tough few weeks for brother and sister bird. Days of snow and freezing temperatures followed by storm after wet and windy storm are not conducive to singing. It's all about staying alive. Birdsong is for balmier times, and those can't come soon enough - for birds or bloggers!

It's the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch week-end and I'll be taking part in the annual one-hour survey tomorrow (because I have footballing duties today). My back garden is a bit of a wreck at the moment, awaiting a nature-friendly make-over in the spring, so I'll probably head to the local park to do my spotting and bird census. There, if I'm lucky, I will see some nuthatches.

nuthatch descending

I've not so far seen nuthatches at the bushes or feeders in my back garden (it's always blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, goldfinches, robins, sparrows and starlings). However, they are becoming more common in these northern parts. RSPB figures show that over the last half-century, the UK population of nuthatches has increased steadily from 70,000 pairs to 250,000 pairs, and their territory has expanded by a third from their southern heartland as they have colonised the country up to the Scottish Borders, an indicator perhaps of the impact of climate change.

They are charming little birds with their grey-blue backs and wings, peachy underbellies and black stripe across the eye (hence the title of today's blog.) They are also unique in being able to walk head first down trees. Various birds (treecreepers and woodpeckers for instance) can climb up tree trunks, but only the cleverly adapted nuthatch can do so in both directions, and is often most easily identified from its distinctive downward stance.

Nuthatches inhabit deciduous woodland, parks and large gardens. Their traditional diet is hazel nuts, beech mast, acorns, wild seeds and insects drilled out of tree bark. However, they are being found increasingly in suburban gardens near parks or woodland, attracted by feeders filled with peanuts or sunflower seeds.

During the breeding season from April onwards they make neat nests in holes in trees or walls, lining them with flakes of bark and dried beech or oak leaves. The clutch of anywhere between six and a dozen eggs is incubated by the female for about two weeks and the young are fed by both male and female birds. The baby nuts are ready to fledge after about five weeks.

Nuthatches can often be heard before they are seen, for their singing voice although not mellifluous is quite recognisable, either as a sort of metallic "chwit chwit" usually followed by a shrill "tsit" and a trill, or as a variant a clear, piping "twee" often repeated and followed by the same rapid trill. 

They are not a common sight (unlike the roll-call of birds I listed earlier), but if you do spot one on a walk through the woods, you'll almost certainly see a second, for they usually fly in pairs except when the female is incubating the eggs. They are a joy to behold, truly delightful little creatures.

nuthatch ascending

It was while I was working in Warsaw fifteen years ago that my then wife and I went for a Sunday afternoon visit to Łazienki Park, the city's largest and oldest green space. We'd actually gone to hear a Chopin piano recital in the park's famous orangery, but walking along the path through woodland  to get there I was surprised to see nuthatches everywhere. There were literally dozens of them within half a mile, flitting about or running up and down trees. It was the most amazing sight and the absolute highlight of the day (though the recital was enjoyable and the hot chocolate with whipped cream was excellent). It left me wondering if Chopin, who grew up in Warsaw in the early 19th century, might have taken compositional inspiration from the singing of the city's trilling nuthatches.

In Łazienki Park

Upside down world, her father dying 

and she struggling to cope,
we held hands tightly I suppose

partly for the cold.
I don't recall that we spoke.

Spring and a flurry of snowflakes 
from iron sky with dull milk sun
as we strolled through avenues
of ancient beech and oak 

all bare but not deserted 

for darting round their trunks
a spectacular fluster of nuthatches
clinging, climbing, up, down,
striped like bandits, shaped for torpedoes
and their insistent metallic song

forged defiant on chilly air. 

Kowalik: blacksmith in native tongue,

how apt is that. I'd never seen

so many in one place before.

She scarcely noticed, I thrilled at the sight.

But once inside the Orangery, its circle

of warmth and chairs, with hot chocolate

and Chopin's études spilling

like the striking songs of birds,

she smiled, setting the world aright.

Here's a short clip of nuthatches singing: Nuthatches

Thanks for reading, S ;-)