About Sitta canadensis Linnaeus, 1766
The red-breasted nuthatch is a small passerine bird that measures 4.5 inches (11 cm) in length, has a wingspan of 8.5 inches (22 cm), and weighs 9.9 g (0.35 oz). Its back and uppertail are bluish, and its underparts are rust-coloured. It has a black cap, a black eye line, and a white supercilium, also called an eyebrow. Males and females have similar plumage: adult males have brighter orange colouring on their underparts, while females and young individuals have duller heads and paler underparts. Red-breasted nuthatches are primarily year-round residents of northern and subalpine conifer forests, but they regularly engage in irruptive migration. Both the number of migrating birds and their wintering locations change from year to year. They sometimes reach northern Mexico, where they are rare winter visitors to Nuevo León, Baja California Norte, and the Pacific slope extending south as far as Sinaloa. In the eastern United States, the species' range is expanding southwards. Although red-breasted nuthatches were formerly resident on Isla Guadalupe, an island off the western coast of Mexico, the species appears to have been extirpated there. The last known recorded sighting of the species on the island dates to 1971. There is only one recorded vagrant sighting of the red-breasted nuthatch on Mexico's Isla Socorro. It is an extremely rare vagrant to Europe, with two recorded sightings in the western Palearctic; one of these birds successfully overwintered in eastern England.
