Nature Notebook
I was recently standing outside my house listening to bird songs when I witnessed a new behavior to me in a common yard bird. A white-breasted nuthatch flew into sight, landing vertically on the maple tree about five feet away. It scanned the trunk, then moved up a little bit and scanned again. Clearly unsatisfied that it wasn’t finding anything, it flew ten feet to the edge of the house, where the layered asphalt shingles creep over the edge. It quickly looked over the edge and plucked a single sunflower seed from between the shingles and took off across the yard and out of sight.
