Next time you’re in your garden, have a look in your trees, particularly if they are tall, to see if you have a nuthatch nesting in one of the trunks, as they’re rather partial to living and breeding in them…
They’re great entertainment if you fancy whiling away a morning as you can watch them try and jam all sorts of things into their new homes.
And if you are lucky enough to have one decide to reside in your tree, you’ll find they’ll probably be with you for a while, as once they have established themselves somewhere, they’re very unlikely to move again.
In fact, they are so territorial they can often be reasonably aggressive against any other birds trying to muscle in on their territory.
Because they tend to like to stick to their territory of preference, you’re unlikely to see them moving on, so if you haven’t seen in your garden before, maybe you need to make it more enticing!
Home Sweet Home
Nuthatches are year-long birds which are mainly located in England and Wales, and more recently southern parts of Scotland.
If they were given a choice of preferred home location, you’d probably find they’d go for mature, deciduous and mixed woodland and they have a firm favourite of woodlands with old oak trees…
If you’re on the lookout for a nuthatch’s nest, have a look in mature woodland and established parkland, on the sides of tree trunks and bushes, and on the undersides of branches.
They favour the older trees with wide leaves as they provide plenty of space for nesting as well as opportunities for foraging not far from home.
Once it’s chosen its new abode location, you’ll find it is usually an empty cavity with a narrow entrance which gives it a chance to make it home, sweet home as you’ll then find it has the most peculiar habit of plastering mud around the access to its nest hole on the tree trunk which it does this to ensure bigger birds stay out.
They will occasionally live in a bird nesting box put in your garden, but often find they get kicked out by the opposition, so they like to stick to what they know best…
