Date: 9/1/25 7:31 pm From: Kevin J. McGowan <kjm2...> Subject: [cayugabirds-l] Red-breasted Nuthatches fly-catching
I had some very cool and unusual experiences with Red-breasted Nuthatches today.
I was walking at Roy Park South Preserve off Irish Settlement in Dryden today. I was looking for migrant warblers that had been reported earlier in the morning. I found a group of chickadees that contained a Magnolia Warbler and a Red-breasted Nuthatch. I was surprised that when I pished the nuthatch came right at me and perched only about 6 ft away! https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/641218154
I left and walked around the trails, but didn't have much away from that spot. I did hear multiple Red-breasted Nuthatches along the way.
About an hour later I was returning through the same area on the main trial where I had had birds earlier. A few chickadees, a couple of warblers, and a group (family?) of Red-breasted Nuthatches.
I watched the group foraging in the trees, with lots of chickadee action, moving from twig to twig, and a couple of warblers moving slower and occasionally fly-catching. But, then I noticed that there were multiple birds doing a lot of fly-catching. Flying out from the trees into the open air and catching flying insects. I had seen a lot of Cedar Waxwings this week doing just this type of foraging. But, these were all NUTHATCHES!
I didn't believe what I was seeing at first, but they just kept doing it over and over. All nuthatches!. And they were successful. They would fly out, often more than 20 feet from the tree they started in and would land on a different perch and consume the winged insect they had just caught.
I could not tell what kind of flying insect they were catching, but I could see them eating them when they landed again. They never returned to the original perch they left from.
I finally realized that they were not sitting in one spot and looking for flying insects to chase, the way flycatchers and Cedar Waxwings do. Instead, I think they were flushing insects from the surface of branches and pursuing them as they flew out and away.
I was amazed at how many nuthatches were doing this, and for how long they did it. I could not swear that there were more than five individuals, but there could have been a dozen. They were constantly fly-catching for the more than 15 minutes I stood and watched them.
I could not predict where they would fly out from, and got no photos or videos. But, it was an amazing spectacle.
Kevin
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