“Yank! Yank! Yank!” A nasal little voice beeps in tree branches overhead. It sounds reminiscent of a toy trumpet (https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/229281561), an endearing feature of a tiny bird with a big presence in the boreal woods.
Red-breasted Nuthatches prefer conifers to deciduous trees, nesting in tree cavities where nests of twigs and grass have been built. In Chisago County we are on the edge of the species’ summer range. We have frequently had red-breasted nuthatches at the bird feeders in winter, but they are absent in the summer. In the breeding season, they head to the pines, spruce and fir of the North Country.
Like some warblers—notably Tennessee, Cape May and Bay-Breasted— Red-breasted Nuthatches gravitate towards spruce budworms, a native moth whose caterpillars are full of protein for nestling nuthatches, but which are also the most destructive pest of North American spruce-fir forests. At present, Minnesota conifer forests are experiencing an upswing of spruce budworm caterpillars, but while these are abundant to nesting birds in summer, in winter they are harder for nuthatches to pry out of dormant tree tissue. When the food supply is hard to come by, Red-breasted Nuthatches take off and head south.
This winter, we are seeing a large number of Red-breasted Nuthatches, a phenomenon called an “irruption.” These irruptions occur every two to three years. The summer after an irruption, the population of nuthatches might be as much as 50% lower than those following non-irruption years. Migration is not without risk. But Erica Dunn, the retired researcher looking at the data noted that overall, the species has quadrupled its population, despite experiencing 23 irruptions in 52 years. The Red-breasted Nuthatch is doing well in North America.
Early in Fall, 2025, birders noticed an influx of the tiny birds. Researchers banding birds on the Bruce Peninsula jutting into Lake Huron had high numbers of nuthatches in their nets. These got banded, of course. In the first few days of September, they banded more Red-beasted Nuthatches than all seven of the preceding years combined. The birds continued to move south and by Christmas Bird Count, some Gulf Coast talliers recorded seeing Red-breasted Nuthatches, a species seldom seen southern count circles.
In Wild River Audubon’s Christmas Bird County tallied Dec. 20th, we recorded 20 individual red breasted birds. This is not an unusual number for our area. We saw the newly-arrived mainly at feeders. The birds alerted us to their presence with a “Yank Yank Yank!” Keep your eyes open these next few months. There may be more tiny nuthatches at your feeders, sounding their little tin horns.
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