Day 209: Red-breasted Nuthatch

The Red-breasted Nuthatch is a small songbird that has blue-grey upperparts and cinnamon red underparts. They can be found in conifer forests from the Pacific Coast of British Columbia to the Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia, extending southward into the mountains of the American Southwest and the southern Appalachians in the East.

They are easy to identify from their call alone, which is very high-pitched and nasal (I read it described as sounding like a toy tin horn). We heard several during a trip to western Maryland a few months ago, but they were all very high in the trees and kept moving around, so they were difficult to photograph. You can barely make out a blurry bird in these two pictures, but it's the best I could do!