Species: Sitta carolinensis

White-breasted Nuthatch

Species

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Species of concern in the Puget Sound watershed

Encyclopedia of Puget Sound

See Wood (1992) for information on identification of sexes in eastern North America (females most closely resemble males in the southeastern U.S., but all can identified correctly in the hand).

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Craniata

Class

Aves

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Sittidae

Genus

Sitta

NatureServe

Source:
ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.105632

Classification

Other Global Common Names

Sita Pecho Blanco - Sittelle à poitrine blanche

Informal Taxonomy

Animals, Vertebrates - Birds - Perching Birds

Formal Taxonomy

Animalia - Craniata - Aves - Passeriformes - Sittidae - Sitta - Differences exist between Pacific Coast, interior, montane, and eastern populations that may revise species limits (AOU 1998). Wood (1992) examined color and size variation and concluded that all populations east of the Great Plains should be considered one subspecies, S. C. CAROLINENSIS.

Ecology and Life History

See Wood (1992) for information on identification of sexes in eastern North America (females most closely resemble males in the southeastern U.S., but all can identified correctly in the hand).

Migration

true - true - false - May retreat in winter from northernmost range and higher elevations (NGS 1983).

Non-migrant

true

Locally Migrant

true

Food Comments

Eats mainly nuts and seeds in fall and winter, insects in spring and summer; forages on trunks and main branches of trees (Terres 1980). Scatterhoards surplus food.

Reproduction Comments

Clutch size is 5-10 (commonly 8). Incubation, by female, lasts about 12 days? Young are tended by both parents, leave nest at about 14 days, fed by parents for another 2 weeks.

Ecology Comments

Forages in mated pairs; maintains year-round territory. Resident pairs stayed together on feeding territory of 10-20 ha throughout year in one study (Terres 1980). 3-16 breeding pairs per 40 ha in northern Arizona forest (Brawn and Balda 1988).

Length

Weight

Conservation Status

NatureServe Global Status Rank

Global Status Last Reviewed

1996-12-02

Global Status Last Changed

1996-12-02

Other Status

LC - Least concern

Distribution

Conservation Status Map

Global Range

Resident from Washington and southern British Columbia to southern Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, south to Baja California, southeastern Arizona, southern Mexican highlands, Gulf Coast, and northern Florida; absent from most of Great Plains.

ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.105632