Bontuchel

Visiting Nain, the bird-feeders are going incredibly well, Blue, Great and Coal Tits, Robins and at least one Nuthatch. Also Mice.

Nuthatches are amazing looking birds with very sleek grey backs and warm peachy undersides. They also have long vicious bills. According to the RSPB, the birds seldom travel far from the woods where they are hatched, so the one in Nain's garden may have come from the woods around the Woodlands or perhaps from those on the other side of the valley (average distance of ring recoveries are less than a kilometre away from their ringing site). They will take food from bird-tables and secrete it around their territories, which are held throughout the year. They are unique among UK birds in plastering mud around their nest-hole entrances (eh? House Martins?)

They are found across most of England and Wales, and now just into Scotland, forming a population of about half a million birds altogether, with numbers steadily rising since the 1970's - perhaps due to increasing use of bird-feeders. It will be interesting to see if ring-necked parakeets compete vigorously with it for nest sites, and have any impact on its numbers in the future.

Their hoarding habit is long term - three months or more, and the hoarded food is used strategically, mainly in periods of severe food shortage, and rather less in more benign weather.