Nuthatches have exploded all over the place. It’s been a screwy summer.
I first noticed the trend about a month ago. I’ve been guiding birders often this season. Once the songbirds stop crooning in early July, I have to rely on my bag of tricks to get birds to reveal themselves. It’s normal for red-breasted nuthatches to be among the first birds to respond to my urgings. Chickadees soon follow. If I’m lucky, they’ll get chatty and entice other birds to approach, wondering what the ruckus is all about.
Typically, one nuthatch will arrive shortly after I start making my squeaks and pishes. Perhaps another will come in 30 seconds later. Not this summer. Whole families of six or more have been descending on me at virtually every stop. Red-breasted nuthatches made an epic number of babies this year.
Nuthatches are bold and inquisitive. Fearing hawks, many birds won’t perch at the top of a tree, but nuthatches will. They will come down to the lowest branches and stare you in the eye. If they don’t like your tricks, they will scold. On the whole, they’re tame and friendly — at least to people. They can be rather aggressive toward any bird that desires their nesting cavity, including house wrens, downy woodpeckers and even their bigger cousins, the white-breasted nuthatches.
At first, the multitude of this summer’s nuthatches was charming. A swarm of these tiny birds all chattering at once will certainly attract the attention of other birds. That’s helpful. Until it becomes distracting. Every time I look for an arriving warbler, my eye is diverted to the movement of another nuthatch.
I kid you not. Last weekend, my tour group was out on Bar Harbor Whale Watch. We were about 20 miles out, approaching a gathering of three humpbacks, when a small bird approached and fluttered around the top deck. Yup. It was a red-breasted nuthatch. Even at sea, I can’t escape them.
I can’t imagine what triggered this year’s population explosion. Red-breasted nuthatches are year-round Maine natives, though they may head south in some winters if food is in short supply. They primarily eat insects, spiders and caterpillars during the summer and switch to a diet of conifer seeds in the winter. Nuthatches can walk up and down tree trunks with equal abandon, often hanging upside down underneath branches. They use their long, thin bills to probe for insects in bark crevices. They also use their bills to hammer open seeds. The name nuthatch shares the same Old English root as the word hatchet.
Nuthatches are regular visitors to feeders. They have the habit of seeking the bigger seeds, which they hammer open, and they often drop the smaller seeds to the ground. That annoys me but delights the squirrels. They are also known for caching food for the winter, jamming seeds and insects into crevices before the cold season arrives.
It’s been a hot, dry summer. I’m assuming that this has produced a bumper crop of critters that nuthatches feed their young. Nuthatches are capable of flying out and catching a bug in the air, but they are mostly interested in creepy crawly things. We must have a lot of creepy crawlers this summer.
Now that Maine’s weather has more in common with Maryland than Newfoundland, I’m seeing other trends this summer. Swallows left early. During my five-day tour last week, we spied two barn swallows. That’s all. Tree, bank and cliff swallows are long gone. Aside from robins, we didn’t spy a single thrush. Hermit thrushes are late migrants, so I can’t believe they’ve left. The warm, dry weather has probably altered their food supplies on the forest floor, forcing them to forage in a less conspicuous way.
I’m having trouble finding warblers. Vireos are less common than usual. Flycatchers have faded away. Not many flying insects hatch in a drought. On the other hand, anecdotally I’d say crows, ravens and blue jays did well this summer. Their family groups are bigger than average this year.
Sadly, puffins have taken a blow to their colorful chins. Biologists fear that virtually every puffin chick has already died or will soon because of malnutrition. Their parents were simply unable to find enough of their normal cold-water food fish in Maine’s warming ocean.
Whatever is happening in the woods, it seems to be good news for nuthatches. Scientists estimate there are about 20 million in the world. That may have doubled in the last month.
Bob Duchesne serves as vice president of Maine Audubon’s Penobscot Valley Chapter. He developed the Maine Birding Trail, with information at mainebirdingtrail.com. He can be reached at duchesne@midmaine.com.