Family: Sittidae, Nuthatches view all from this family

Description 4-5" (10-13 cm). Smaller than a sparrow. Upperparts dull blue-gray, underparts whitish. Crown dull brown, with whitish spot on nape.

Habitat Coniferous and mixed forests.

Nesting 5 or 6 white eggs, heavily speckled with red-brown, in a cup of bark, grass, and feathers placed in a cavity in a dead tree or fence post, or under loose bark.

Range Resident from Delaware, Missouri, and eastern Texas south to Gulf Coast and central Florida.

Voice   A series of high-pitched piping notes, unlike the calls of other eastern nuthatches.

Discussion The smallest of our eastern nuthatches, this species spends more time than the other nuthatches among terminal branches and twigs of trees. After breeding, these birds gather in flocks of a dozen or more and move through the woods along with woodpeckers and chickadees. They are quite agile and restless, flitting from one cluster of pine needles to another.