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Photo credit: Jean-Guy Dallaire

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The White-breasted Nuthatch, Sitta carolinensis, is a small songbird.

The adult birds are about 155 millimeters (6 inches) long. In the adult male the cap and a band on the upper mantle are black. The rest of the upper parts are a pale blue-gray. The wing coverts and flight feathers are blackish with paler fringes. The tertials are often marked with pale gray and black. There is a slight wing bar in the greater coverts. The face and the underparts are white. The White-breasted Nuthatch is the only North American nuthatch in which the white of the face completely surrounds the eye. The outer tail feathers are black with broad diagonal white bands across the outer three feathers. They have short legs with long claws, short wings and a short tail.

Their breeding habitat is deciduous and mixed forests across North America. They nest in a tree cavity, either natural or excavated by a woodpecker.

These birds are permanent residents, sometimes moving south in winter.

They forage on the trunk and large branches of trees, often descending head first. They mainly eat insects and some seeds. They often travel with small mixed flocks in winter.

The call is a nasal yeah-yeah-yeah in the east or a fast yididit in the west.