Bird symbolism

Bald Eagle

In many cultures around the world, birds are seen as a supernatural link between Heaven and Earth. In the Middle East and other part of Asia, birds symbolize immortality. In East Indian mythology, birds represent departed souls. In Christian art, birds often are depicted as saved souls.

Eagles represent power, resurrection and courage. They embody faith and inner reflection. In ancient Greek and Roman times, artists depicted a soaring eagle carrying a soul to Heaven.

Cranes are associated with long life, health, happiness, wisdom and good luck. In Asian culture, white cranes can travel to the heavens. In China, cranes flew with the gods to the "isle of the Immortals."

Sandhill Crane

The dove is regarded as the sign of peace and life. It was the bird Noah released after the flood in order to find land; the dove returned with an olive leaf, a sign of life and renewal. The Hebrew story acquired the meaning of peace during the Christian era. As Christian icons, the dove also symbolizes the Holy Spirit.

The hawk is represented as warlike, the opposite of the peace of the dove. However, treatment of the hawk as warlike is a secular and relatively recent term, entering the popular American culture during the 1800s.

In some societies, the falcon is a protective guardian and companion of hunters. In ancient Egypt, the falcon was associated with the Eye of Horus and the god Ra. Horus was believed to appear in the form of a falcon-headed god. He could see all because one eye was the sun and the other was the moon.

In dreams, owls represent wisdom, insight and virtue. However, the owl can also be an omen of death and darkness. An owl's hoot foretells future heartache and warms that deception or death lies ahead.

Nightingale

The nightingale, with its evening song, is the bird of love, sheltering secret lovers from prying eyes. Because it sings all night, it was once thought to not sleep at all. Legend tells of a reluctant shepherdess who kept postponing her wedding date. This caused the fiancée so many sleepless nights that he finally turned her into a nightingale to condemn her to a sleepless life.

The nightingale's song is cherished around the world and considered to be a good omen for poets, writers and singers.

The raven features prominently in another love story: a man's devotion the death of his beloved Lenore, as the poet Edgar Allen Poe tells the tale. Having entered the brooding man's chamber, the man asks the raven his name. "Nevermore," replies the raven to repeated demands, enraging the man. Poe leaves it unclear as to whether the raven knows what its word means or whether the bird gets pleasure out of the man's loss. The poet Homer and the Bible both refer to ravens, the former depicting the ability to erase memories and the latter suggesting a source of medicinal cure.

Peacock

Peacocks represent spring, birth, new growth, longevity and love. The peacock's beauty is welcome in temples, royal gardens and, according to one Muslim tradition, the Gates of Paradise. The eye patterns in the peacock's tail feathers represent the stars, universe, sun moon and "the vault of Heaven."

The sparrow is a symbol of rebirth, resurrection and the mother goddess. The long battle of Troy was forecast when nine sparrows, one for each year of war, were eaten by a snake. As a Christian symbol, the sparrow represents the concern of God for the least among His people. Sparrows are always under God's protection.

European Starling

European Starling in the summer

Who doesn't love a good challenge? Often referred to as pests, starlings seem to take over especially after fledging. We can either embrace them or try to discourage them from our feeders, baths and nesting boxes. One thing you have to say about them, starlings are extremely resourceful.

As the name suggests, European Starlings are not native to North America. In the 1890s, Shakespeare enthusiasts wanted all birds mentioned in the bard's works to be found here in the United States. They released 100 starlings in New York's Central Park. The population took off, and now the bird is found from Alaska to Mexico, and from coast to coast, to the tune of 200 million birds!

European Starlings are stocky black birds with short tales. They are covered with white spots during winter but the birds turn dark and glossy in the summer. This happens without shedding feathers. Feathers grown in the fall have bold white tips that give them their spots. By spring, these tips have worn away, and he rest of the feather is dark and iridescent brown. It's an unusual change that scientists term "wear molt."

European Starling in the winter

In flight, starlings' wings are short and pointed, making them look like small four-pointed stars, thus their name.

Starlings are found in backyards, cities or agricultural fields. The need open grassy areas in which to forage, a water source for drinking and bathing, and trees or buildings with a cavity or niche in which to build a nest.

Starlings eat insects and other invertebrates, including grasshoppers, beetles, snails, earthworms, millipedes and spiders. They also eat fruits, including cherries, holly berries, hackberries, mulberries, Virginia creeper, sumac and blackberries. Another favorite in the diet is grain, nectar, seed, livestock feed and garbage. No wonder there are 200 million starlings!

However, it appears that starlings do not like safflower seed. We switch to safflower seed on our platform feeder in summer to give other birds a chance to eat.

Starlings will eat almost anything, including suet

Male starlings build the nest using grass, pine needles, feathers, trash or string. Females finish the nest and may discard some of the material that the male selected. One to three broods are raised each year, with each consisting of three to six eggs. Both parents incubate the eggs for 12 days. Chicks are helpless when they hatch. They fledge after 21 days.

Due to their relatively recent arrival in the United States, all of our starlings are closely related genetically. Birds in Virginia are indistinguishable from those found in Utah, for instance.

Brown Pelicans

Brown Pelican

If you go to the New Jersey shore this summer, you may see a funny-looking bird with an oversized bill and a big, stocky, dark body. It probably is a Brown Pelican, which can be found along the Atlantic shore during the summer months.

These shorebirds have thin necks and very long bills with a stretchy throat pouch used for capturing fish. Their wings are very long and broad, and are noticeably bowed when gliding.

Brown Pelicans mostly eat small fish that form schools near the surface of the water. They can spot the fish from the air and dive head-first from as high as 65 feet. They tuck and twist to the left to cushion their trachea and esophagus from impact. As the pelican plunges into the water, the throat pouch expands to trap the fish, filling with as much as 2.6 gallons of water. While the pelican drains the water out of its bill, seagulls may try to steal the fish right out of the pouch!

Feeding time!

Brown Pelicans have two choices for nesting. Some nests are mere grassy depressions while others are bulky structures of sticks, grass and seaweed. Other pelicans nest in trees on platforms of sticks lined with grass or leaves. Pelicans incubate their eggs with the skin on their feet, essentially standing on them to keep the eggs warm.

In the mid 1900s, the commonly used insecticide DDT caused egg shells to become very thin, which cracked under the weight of the parents. After nearly disappearing from North America in the 1960s and 1970s, Brown Pelicans have made a full comeback.

They are masterful fliers. They fly in V-formations or straight lines. We once were on the beach in Cape May and looked up to see a line of pelicans flying along the water's edge. True to form, each pelican matched the beat of the wing of the other's. It was quite a show!

Bird fun facts

Archaeopteryx

The oldest bird, the Archaeopteryx, lived about 150 million years ago.

An ostrich egg must be boiled for 2 hours to get a hard-boiled egg.

Ostrich eyes are about as big as a billiard ball and are larger than the bird's brain.

When ducks sleep in groups, the ones on the perimeter keep guard by sleeping with one eye open.

Native to New Zealand, the kiwi is sometimes called an "honorary mammal" because its feathers feel like hair.

Most hummingbirds weigh less than a nickel.

In ancient Greece, pigeons delivered the results of the Olympic games.

Some swiftlets build their nests almost exclusively from their hardened saliva. The saliva nests are a delicacy in some countries despite having little flavor and no nutritional value.

Brown Kiwi of New Zealand

There are many names for flocks of birds. A group of crows is a murder, congress or horde. Finches come in charms, penguins in huddles and geese in gaggles. The most creative may be a pandemonium of parrots or a flamboyance of flamingoes.

Birds' lungs are more complicated and more efficient than mammals' lungs. Human lungs, for instance, comprise one-twentieth of the body; the bird's, one-fifth.

The bird with the most feathers is the Whistling Swan with 25,000 feathers. Hummingbirds, due to their tiny size, only have about 1,000 feathers.

The feathers of a bird weigh more than its skeleton.

The Bald Eagle builds the biggest tree nests. The largest was 10 feet across and weighed close to 3 tons.

A huddle of penguins takes daily stroll from zoo in Scotland in 1950s

Approximately two-thirds of all bird species are found in tropical rain forests.

Owls cannot move their eyes. Instead they swivel their heads.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Bold, quick and energetic, the Red-breasted Nuthatch is in the same family (Passeriformes) as the White-breasted Nuthatch but seen less often in our area.

A small, compact bird with a long, pointed bill, the Red-breasted Nuthatch has a short tail and almost no neck. It is blue-gray with a black cap and stripe through the eye broken by a white stripe over the eye. The underparts are a rust color.

Red-breasted Nuthatches are mainly found in coniferous forests and mountains. Look for them in fir, pine, spruce, hemlock, larch and western red cedar trees. In northeastern North America, they are also found in deciduous trees.

In summer, Red-breasted Nuthatches eat mainly insect, beetles, caterpillars, spiders and ants, and they feed their young the same diet. They also eat from feeders, taking peanuts, sunflower seeds and suet.

They move quickly and in any direction across tree trunks and branches. They rely on the large claw on their one backward-pointing toe to maintain their grip.

During courtship, males have a soft, musical song. In courtship display, the male turns his back toward the female, lifts his head, droops his wings and sways from side to side.

Nuthatches are among the few non-woodpeckers that excavate their own nests from solid wood. Red-breasted Nuthatches collect resin globules from coniferous trees and plaster them around the entrance to the nest hole. The male plasters outside the hole; the female inside the hole. The resin may keep out predators or competitors. The nuthatch avoids the resin by diving directly into the hole.

Northernmost populations of the Red-breasted Nuthatch migrate south for the winter, but other populations may not come south at all. Red-breasted Nuthatches can be irruptive (not normally found in an area). They move south when pine cone production is poor in breeding areas.

Sightings in our area may be in two- to three-year cycles. This winter was a banner season for Red-breasted Nuthatches in the Lehigh Valley.

Snow Goose

The Snow Goose is a medium-sized goose with a hefty bill and a long, thick neck. The white body has black wingtips that are barely visible on the ground but noticeable in flight. The pink bill has a dark line along it, often called a "grinning patch." Sometimes a dark morph or "Blue Goose" is seen with a white face, dark brown body and white under the tail.

Snow Geese travel in the company of another couple dozen geese and then form flocks of several hundred thousand during migration. Family groups forage together on wintering grounds, digging up tubers and roots from muddy fields and marshes. Snow Geese quickly adapt to using agricultural fields for feed which is one reason their populations have grown so much.

Snow Geese are vegetarians that eat grasses, sedges (wet-ground grass), rushes (grasslike plants with hollow stems in marshy places), shrubs, and willows. They consume seeds, stems, leaves, tubers and roots either by grazing or ripping plants out of the ground. 

Food passes through their digestive tract in an hour or two, generating six to 15 droppings per hour! The rate is greatest when the goose is eating rhizomes that are high in fiber content. (Just thought you'd like to know … )

The pink bill has a "grinning patch"

Females forage for up to 18 hours a day once they arrive at breeding grounds, but eat little once they start incubating eggs. Snow Geese mate for life and choose a mate of the same color. Snow Geese breed in colonies on Canadian and northern Alaskan tundra in the vicinity of coasts, from high arctic to sub-arctic. Snow Geese chicks are well developed when they hatch, with open eyes and down-covered bodies. 

Snow Geese make epic journeys by air but they are impressive on foot, too. Within three weeks of hatching, goslings may walk as much as 50 miles with their parents to find suitable feeding areas. In wintering and migrating flocks that are feeding, lookouts keep an eye out for eagles and other predators. Upon sighting a threat, they call out and the flock takes wing.

Watching huge flocks of Snow Geese swirling down from the sky is a little like standing inside a noisy snow globe!

Black-capped Chickadee

Of the five major species of chickadees found in the United States and Canada, the Black-capped Chickadee is the most widespread, numerous and geographically variable. This bird brightens winter days at bird feeders. It is curious, with little or no fear of humans, and is famous for being easily trained to eat out of a person's hand.

During the fall, we may see them in groups along with other bird species. The advantage is that many eyes are more likely to find food.

The Black-capped Chickadee has a black cap, white cheeks, back bib and gray underparts. Sideband flanks are tuff and the tail feathers are edged in white. 

Three subspecies of the Black-capped Chickadee differ in several characteristics. A northwestern group is small and dark-backed with heavy buff flanks. An interior western group is large and pale-backed with broad white wing edging. An eastern subspecies is generally intermediate between the other two, with a prominence of white wing edging and richness of buff tan sides.

Like many birds, Black-capped Chickadees are omnivores. They eat a diet of seeds, berries, insects, invertebrates and, occasionally, small portions of carrion. Chickadees have a fondness of storing food and eating it later. In autumn, chickadees replace old neurons in their brains with new ones which gives them more space to store new information. This is similar to us forgetting old phone numbers to make room for e-mail addresses!

Black-capped Chickadees' calls are complex and language-like. They communicate information on identity and recognition of other flocks as well as predator alarms and contact calls. The traditional call is chick-a-dee-dee-dee. The more dee notes in the call, the higher level of threat. Most birds that associate with chickadee flocks respond to chickadee alarm calls, even when their own species does not have a similar alarm call. Black-capped Chickadees also have a fee bee call that almost sounds like a whistle.

The Black-capped Chickadee is the state bird of Maine and Massachusetts and the provincial bird of New Brunswick.

A group of chickadees is called a banditry of chickadees. The collective noun probably refers to the mask-like appearance of the bird.

The chickadee is a fun bird to observe. It is still my favorite.

Falcons

American Kestrel (male)

Falcons are characterized by long, pointed wings and swift, powerful flight. Although members off the order Falconiformes, which includes hawks, falcons are part of the genus Falco, which numbers more than 35 species worldwide. They range in size from 6 inches long to about 24 inches. In true falcons, the female is larger and bolder than the male.

The American Kestrel is the smallest falcon in North America. It is a colorful falcon: The male has a slate colored head and wings contrasting with the rusty red back and tail.

They are often seen perching on telephone wires along roads in deserts, grasslands or alpine meadows.

Kestrels may nest in nest boxes or natural cavities. When nature calls, kestrels back up, raise their tail and squirt feces onto the wall of the cavity. The feces dry on the wall and stay off the nestlings. The nest can get pretty smelly with all the poo on the walls plus uneaten parts of small animals on the floor!

The Peregrine Falcon is a powerful fast-flying hunter which preys on medium-sized birds, dropping down from high above in a spectacular dive, called a sloop. In cities, they feast on doves. Elsewhere they feed on ducks and shorebirds.

Peregrine Falcon

Look for Peregrines perching or nesting on cliffs, skyscrapers and other tall buildings. The Peregrine Falcon is one of the most widespread birds in the world. It is found on all continents except Antarctica.

People have trained falcons for over a thousand years. Falconry is the hunting of wild quarry in its natural habitat by means of a trained bird of prey. The Peregrine Falcon was always one of the most prized birds.

To learn this sport, there is the New Hampshire School of Falconry. It is one of a handful in the nation devoted to explaining and teaching the art and science of the craft.

Falconry is legal everywhere in the United States except Hawaii and the District of Columbia.

House Wren

A plain brown bird with an "effervescent" voice, the House Wren is a common backyard bird seen over almost all of the Western Hemisphere.

The House Wren is small and compact with a flat head and long curved beak. It has short wings and the tail is often held cocked above or slightly drooped from the body line.

The bird is a subdued brown with darker barring on the wings and tail. The pale eyebrow that is characteristic of wrens is quite pale in the House Wren.

House Wrens are very energetic and you may often see them hopping quickly through bushes pausing to sing their songs. They are found in open forests and forest edges, as well as backyards.

The House Wren has one of the largest ranges of any songbird in the New World. It breeds from Canada through the West Indies and Central America, and southward to the southernmost point of South America.

Twigs make up most of the nest

House Wrens pile twigs into cavities to make a bed on which to build a soft cup lined with a few feathers, grasses, animal hair, snakeskin or string. Despite their small size, they are fierce competitors, often evicting larger birds, dragging eggs or young chicks out of a nest and sometimes even killing the adult birds. House Wrens are the main source of nest failure for bluebirds, Tree Swallows, Prothonotary Warblers and chickadees.

Nests in tree cavities or nest boxes can become infested with mites and other parasites. Wrens will often add spider egg sacs to their nesting materials. Once the spiders hatch, they help the wrens by devouring the nest parasites.

The House Wren's diet consists of spiders, beetles, caterpillars, earwigs, daddy longlegs, flies, leafhoppers and springtails. They will sometimes eat small snail shells for the calcium and grit.

As with many birds, you may hear a wren before you see it. The long song may be hard to learn because the notes are nondescript and because there is so much of it! It is loud and insistent, making it hard to believe that such a little bird is making all that noise.

Mourning Doves

The Mourning Dove is a frequent visitor to backyards—and for good reason. It is the most abundant and widespread dove, and it is found in a wide variety of habitats.

You can find them at some point in the year in all continental states and in Canada and Mexico. You'll see them perched on telephone wires, on bare ground or in fields. The only place you may not see them is in deep forests.

The Mourning Dove is about 12 inches long with a trim body and a small head. The long tail tapers to a point, which is unique among North American doves. The tail feathers are black, bordered with white tips. Most obvious is the beige-colored body with black spots on the upper wings and a pinkish wash below. The legs and feet are reddish.

The bird flies fast on strong wingbeats, sometimes making swift ascents or descents with quick turns or dodges, its pointed tail stretching behind it. Wings produce a fluttering whistle as the bird takes flight.

Seeds make up 99 percent of the Mourning Dove's diet, including grains and even peanuts, as well as wild grasses, weeds, herbs and occasionally berries. They sometimes eat small snails. Mourning Doves eat roughly 12 to 20 percent of their body weight per day! A 180-pound man would have to eat 342 hard boiled eggs each day to match that food intake.

Mourning Doves tend to feed on the ground but we have seen them on platform feeders or trying to get on small tube or hopper feeders too. They will swallow seeds and store them in an enlargement of the esophagus, called a crop. Once they have filled it (the record is 17,500 bluegrass seeds in a single crop!), they fly to a safe perch to digest the meal.

Unique among birds, Mourning Doves drink without lifting their heads. Instead they use their beak as a straw.

Their nests are almost pathetic. They are a flimsy assembly of twigs, pine needles and grass stems about 8 inches across. There is little insulation for the young. So flimsy are the nests that they often fall apart during a strong wind or rainstorm. But Mourning Doves also have five or six broods per year, incubating one batch of eggs while feeding fledglings. Generally two eggs are laid at a time. Chicks are fed "crop milk" regurgitated from the adults.

Mourning Doves sometimes will use a hanging basket for their nesting site (which does the plant in the basket little good). The doves are persistent; sometimes it is easier to take a hanging basket, plant some inexpensive spider plants or ivy and just give it over to the birds.

The Mourning Dove is the most abundant game bird in North America. Every year hunters harvest more than 20 million birds, yet the Mourning Dove remains on the "least concern" list of the National Audubon Society's conservation list. The bird's population is estimated at 350 million.

To attract Mourning Doves to your backyard, supply them with safflower or white millet seed or sunflower chips. Scatter the seed on the ground or place it on a platform feeder. Dense trees or shrubs provide nesting sites. Keep cats indoors. The birds spend most of their time on the ground and are vulnerable to prowling cats.

Grosbeaks

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (male)

Keep your eyes out for Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. They arrive en masse in May after traveling from their wintering grounds in Central American and the Caribbean. They commonly stop at backyard feeders to dine on sunflower seeds.

The birds then fan out to forest edges or woodlands to breed. 

For instance, two of these birds were reported at the Martins Creek Environmental Preserve in Northampton County on Friday morning. Also on Friday, another one was seen at the Trexler Nature Preserve in Lehigh County. Earlier in the week, four appeared at Beltzville State Park in Carbon County.

You may find it harder to see Rose-breasted Grosbeaks from June through August. They'll congregate again in large numbers in September before flying south for the winter.

The boldly patterned Rose-breasted Grosbeak is easily identified. The contrast between the pure black back and hood, white front and red bib of the male is striking.

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks eat seed, insects, fruit and buds. Their nest is so thinly constructed that the eggs can often be seen from below through the nest. The male participates in the incubation of the eggs. Both sexes sing softly to each other as they exchange places. 

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (female)

Grosbeaks are any of conical-billed birds belonging to the families Cardinalidae and Fringillidae. Their name is derived from the French gros bec, or "thick beak," denoting their ability to crack seeds with ease.

Red-breasted Grosbeaks are from Cardinalidae, a family that includes the Northern Cardinal. The Black-headed Grosbeak is also part of the family. The two species range east and west of the Rockies, respectively. The Blue Grosbeak is also in this family but is mainly found in shrubby habitats in the southern United States.

In the Great Plains, where territories of Rose-breasted and Black-headed grosbeaks overlap, hybridizing may occur. Hybrids can look like either of the parent species or of various combinations of pink, black or orange.

The Blue Grosbeak, also from the Cardinalidae family, is an occasional visitor to southeastern Pennsylvania during breeding season. They are rarely stray north to the Lehigh Valley. 

The males are vibrantly blue with enormous silver bills and chestnut wing bars. The females are primarily cinnamon-brown. Despite their bright color, males are unobtrusive, perching high in shrubs and small trees.

Evening Grosbeak

In the Fringillidae family, the Evening Grosbeak is the best-known in North America. Noisy flocks of these chunky big-billed yellow, black, brown and white finches descend on feeders in winter for sunflower seeds.

The Evening Grosbeak breeds in coniferous forests in northern United States into Canada. In winter, we may see them at feeders looking for sunflower seeds. Their thick beaks are ideal for cracking sunflower shells and can even crack cherry pits. They may also feast on small fruits and maple seeds, plus insects and small invertebrates.

Evening Grosbeaks are seen locally in some years but not in others, according to the Lehigh Valley Audubon Society's book Birds of the Lehigh Valley and Vicinity.

The Pine Grosbeak of northern North America forages in small flocks and sometimes flies great distances in winter for natural food. Adult males are bright reddish brown; females are mostly brown. A large finch, it may be seen in the winter in southern Canada and the northern United States including Pennsylvania. Its diet consists mostly of buds, seeds and fruits of spruce, pine, juniper, maple, mountain ash, and apple and crabapple trees. 

A breeding adult Pine Grosbeak develops pouches in the floor of its mouth to carry food to the young.

So "grosbeak" links characteristics—thick, strong beaks—of birds who may or may not be cousins.

Blue Grosbeak (male)

Pine Grosbeak (male)

Purple Martins

Male Purple Martin

When you put up a Purple Martin house, it is as if you installed a miniature neighborhood in your backyard! Dark, glossy blue males and brown females peek out of the entrances and chirp from the rooftops all summer.

Purple Martins are our largest swallows; they perform acrobatics as they snap up flying insects.

Purple Martins have very large, broad chests; stout, slightly hooked bills; short forked tails, and long, tapered wings.

Males are iridescent, dark blue-purple overall with brown-black wings and tail. Females and immature birds are duller, with various amounts of gray on the head and chest and a whitish tone on the lower body.

Purple Martins fly rapidly with a mix of flapping and gliding. They are year-round insectivores, feeding higher than other swallows, often higher than 150 feet and sometimes 500 feet or more off the ground. 


They feed in mid-air, during the day catching large insects such as dragonflies, beetles, flies, mosquitoes, damselflies, leafhoppers, grasshoppers, crickets, butterflies, moths, wasps, bees, caddisflies, spiders, cicadas, termites and mayflies. 

They also will eat bits of gravel to digest insect exoskeletons. They get their water while flying over ponds, scooping water with their bill.

Female Purple Martin

Purple Martins are colonial, with dozens nesting in the same spot in large, multi-roomed apartments or nest boxes. These houses often have six, 12 or 18 rooms high atop 15-foot poles.

To attract Purple Martins, place decoys on the top of the house and play CDs with their calls to give them the impression of a "good neighborhood."

Long-distance migrants, they gather in huge roosts (of several hundred thousand birds) along the Gulf coast from Texas to Florida. They fly during the day, foraging as they go, as they continue their migration to Brazil.

Purple Martins are arriving in our area in in early April. They stay through early September. If you don't see one in your backyard, look for them in open fields or near bodies of water.

Male in foraging in flight

Visit The Bird House to create your own Purple Martin neighborhood—house, retractable pole, decoy, CD and informational booklet.

Nuthatches

White-breasted Nuthatch

Nuthatches are little acrobats, climbing head first down the trunk of a tree. They use the tree to collect acorns or nuts but they also use it as a tool. After locating a meaty nut—or grabbing a seed from a backyard feeder—they'll wedge the goodie into a crevice and pound it open with several blows.

In fact, the name "nuthatch" comes from the Middle English word "nuthak," referring to the bird's technique of hacking at a tree to break open the treat.

Their ability to climb down trees head first is accomplished by an extra long back toe claw. While hopping down from the tree, they look for insects or insect eggs that other birds miss when they climb up the tree.

In our area, we mostly see White-breasted or Red-breasted nuthatches. Several other species are found elsewhere across much of the Northern Hemisphere. 

The White-breasted Nuthatch is 5 to 6 inches long, with a slate gray back, white face and white belly. The black cap and nape adds contrast. There is some chestnut color on the undertail.

The Red-breasted Nuthatch is 4.5 inches long, with a gray back, black cap and obvious black eye line. The breast and belly are rust-colored.

Habitats differ between White-breasted and Red-breasted nuthatches. The Red-breasted lives mostly in forests of spruces, fir, pine, hemlock and western red cedar, however eastern populations will use deciduous forests. 

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Nuthatches are monogamous. A pair of male and female Red-breasted Nuthatches work together to excavate cavities for nests. They are aggressive, chasing other cavity dwellers away. They also collect resin globules from evergreen trees and plaster them around the nest hole. This may help keep out predators or competition. To avoid the resin themselves, the nuthatch dives directly through the hole.

White-breasted Nuthatches typically build their nests in natural tree cavities or in abandoned woodpecker holes. They may enlarge the holes but rarely excavate them entirely as the Red-breasted Nuthatch does. Unlike the Red-breasted Nuthatch, the White-breasted species will use a bird house.

Their songs are somewhat similar. The White-breasted Nuthatch's is a rapid, nasal "whi-whi-whi-whi" of six to 12 nearly identical notes lasting 2 or 3 seconds. The Red-breasted Nuthatch's call is a fast series of nasal, hornlike "yank-yank" that can be repeated up to 16 times per minute.

As cold weather approaches in the fall, White-breasted Nuthatches will join chickadees or Tufted Titmice in foraging at bird feeders—it's easier than trying to find seeds in nature. The nuthatch will store the seeds in the furrows of the bark of the tree to eat later in the winter. Unfortunately squirrels sometimes take note of the nuthatch's diligence and grab seeds right after they've been wedged them into place.

We find nuthatches fun to watch at either the seed feeder or the peanut feeder. They enjoy sunflower seeds, peanuts and suet. Try smearing "Wildlife Peanut Butter," a special brand available at The Bird House, on tree bark for nuthatches to eat.

Tufted Titmouse

A little gray bird with an echoing voice, the Tufted Titmouse is common in eastern forests and a frequent visitor to backyard feeders. Its large black eyes, small bill and bushy crest give this bird an eager expression that goes along with the way it flits through the canopies and drops in to feeders.

The Tufted Titmouse is silvery gray above and white below, with a rusty "blush" on its flanks. It also has a black patch above the bill.

Tufted Titmice live in both deciduous or mixed deciduous-evergreen woods, usually with dense canopies and many species of trees. Generally they are found at low elevations, rarely above 2,000 feet. They often are perched at the end of branches which makes them easier to spot.

Tufted Titmice are regulars at backyard feeders, especially in winter. They prefer sunflower seeds and will eat suet and peanuts as well. In summer they eat mainly insects such as caterpillars, beetles, ants and wasps, stink bugs, spiders and snails. Beside these, they also eat nuts and berries.

Titmouse nest built in bird house

The Tufted Titmouse is a cavity dweller that makes its nest either in a nest box or an old nest hole made by woodpeckers. They cannot excavate their own. Nesting material is very diverse: damp leaves, moss and grass. They line the nest with hair, fur, wood and cotton, sometimes plucking hair from living animals, including cats and dogs! Nest construction takes six to 11 days. The clutch may be from three to nine eggs. Incubation is about two weeks. Nestlings leave the nest in 15 or 16 days.

Titmice hoard food in fall and winter. They take advantage of the bounty of food found at feeders, usually storing the seed about 130 feet from the feeder. The bird takes one seat at a time and usually shells the seed before storing.

Tufted Titmice pairs to not gather into larger flocks outside the breeding season. Instead they remain in the territory as a pair. Frequently one of their young remains with the parents for the rest of that season. Rarely the young titmice will remain with the parents to hep raise the next year's brood.

Listen for their distinctive whistled peter-peter-peter song, a song often heard before seeing the bird.

Winter Wren

The Winter Wren is small in stature and incomparably energetic in voice and song. The secretive bird lives in moist dense forests in eastern North America. The best time to look for the bird in the Lehigh Valley is October through mid-March. It is not often seen here at warmer months of the year.

The Winter Wren is identifiable by its short tail, usually cocked upward. The plumage is dark brown overall and the bill is thin and pointed.

The bird often creeps among fallen logs and dense tangles, behaving like a mouse, as it searches for tiny prey. The Winter Wren stays out of sight, but gives an occasional kimp-kimp call note. Per unit weight, the Winter Wren delivers its song with 10 times more power than a crowing rooster!

In the summer the bird's habitat extends from Newfoundland to Manitoba. It also is found in the woodlands and underbrush of the upland Appalachians in the northern United States. During the winter, Winter Wrens are found in very dense woods, especially along stream beds and among fallen logs. Their winter range extends from the United States side of the Great Lakes deep into the southern states.

Winter Wrens feed mostly on insects including beetles, caterpillars, ants, small wasps, and some spiders, millipedes and snails. They usually search for prey among foliage, on twigs and tree trunks, and on the ground. When feeding low along stream banks, they may even pluck bugs from the water's surface.

An insectivore, the Winter Wren can remain in moderately cold—and even snowy—climates by foraging for insects on logs and in bark. Sometimes they will take large pupae or seeds.

In spring the male Winter Wren will ascend to high perches in conifers where they will sing a beautiful song of long-running musical trills. When courting, the male perches near the female with his wings half-opened and fluttering. His tail is spread and he moves it from side to side while he sings.

Nests are built in low cavities among upturned and downed trees, in rotten stumps or old woodpecker cavities, and in holes along stream banks. Both the male and female build a domed structure of grass, weeds, roots and moss, and they line it with animal hair and feathers. The female lays five or six eggs and incubates them for 14 to 16 days. Both parents feed the nestlings. After about 19 days, the chicks fledge.

A few years ago one April, we saw a Winter Wren along a creek in the Katellan State Gamelands near Wind Gap. It was a cute little bird!