The Birders Report

Audubon’s Yellow-rumped Warbler photos by Larry Jordan

Check out my latest West Coast Beat Writer post on the Audubon’s Yellow-rumped Warbler for wood warbler week over at 10000 Birds!

White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) Male photos by Larry Jordan

I was out checking my nest boxes this morning and as I opened the front of the box and looked in, something was different.  These didn’t look like Oak Titmouse nestlings and this didn’t look like an Oak Titmouse nest!

These are White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) chicks.  They have lighter down than Oak Titmouse nestlings and longer beaks too (the post of the Oak Titmouse nestlings also has a link to a must see video of their cousins, the Tufted Titmouse, showing the entire nesting cycle of this bird, from nest hunting to fledging).

I have had a pair of White-breasted Nuthatches living around my house continuously for years now but they have never chosen to nest in one of my nest boxes…until now.

I was expecting Oak Titmice to be using this box.  They also use lots of fur and hair in their nests, but this one was different, it had lots of bark making up the base layer for the nest.

Only the female White-breasted Nuthatch incubates the eggs for 12 to 14 days. The male feeds her while she is incubating and after the eggs hatch, for a few days while she broods the clutch.

I got a couple of photos of the proud parents bringing food to the nest.  It is fairly dark where the nest box is located so the photos are a bit grainy as I had to use a 3200 ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed to stop the action.  Nuthatches move rather quickly but they will stop occasionally for a split-second photo op.

Here is a shot of what appears to be the male White-breasted Nuthatch bringing in a moth.  Both parents were feeding the chicks and removing the fecal sacs.

Here is the male peeking out the nest box entrance after the feeding. This is an old nest box on which I just replaced the roof and front. The entrance hole is 1 1/2 inches which works for all my cavity nesting song birds, the Western Bluebird, Oak Titmouse, Tree Swallow, Ash-throated Flycatcher, Violet-green Swallow and now, the White-breasted Nuthatch which often reuses their nests year after year 😉

To see more great bird photos, check out Bird Photography Weekly!

Green Heron in Nest photos by Larry Jordan

The Green Heron (Butorides virescens) nest now has four nestlings!  When I last posted on the Green Heron nest, the pair were chasing off an interloper.  Now they are feeding four, week old chicks!  Here is a photo of one the proud parents in the nest.

When I arrived at Norm and Chris’ home, where the herons have been nesting for the past six years, there was one adult in the nest and the chicks were resting down in the nest.  Not until the other adult came to the nest to relieve its partner was there any activity.

When the exchange took place, the chicks sat up where I could see them briefly.

Both adults climbed out of the nest to a branch nearby, out of my sight. Shortly afterwards, one of them flew off.

The chicks nestled down in the nest again and the remaining adult stayed on the nearby branch for almost an hour before coming down into the nest.  Here it is sticking its tongue out.

A few minutes later, the feeding frenzy began.  Notice that there are four chicks in this photo, two nestlings are below as the other two grab the parent’s beak to take food directly into their beaks.  This behavior begins at about one week of age according to Birds of North America Online.

This behavior can get pretty intense as you can see from this photo where one of the nestlings is pulling the adult’s beak down with what appears to be quite a bit of force.

The photos don’t really show how violent this looks as it occurs, so I filmed it for you.

After all the feeding was over, the family of Green Herons sat in the nest together, apparently satisfied for the time being.

For more great bird photos, get on over to World Bird Wednesday!