Red-breasted nuthatch
Sitta canadensis
Bird
A small, rust-bellied nuthatch of spruce, fir, hemlock, and pine, and the most northern-ranging of its family in North America. It excavates its own hole in soft dead wood and then smears sticky conifer resin around the entrance, diving cleanly through the middle to avoid its own defence. In years when the northern cone crop fails it abandons the conifer belt entirely and turns up far south of its usual range.
Plan for this species
Location-fit plant set for Chicago, IL: host and specialist plants first, then nectar, fruit, seed, foliage, and shelter plants that still fit the current and mid-century climate read.
0 essential relationships / 5 supporting plants
Host/specialist links: 0
Forage/pollination links: 4
Shelter links: 1
Relationship roles: 2
Eastern hemlock
Supporting / Seed plants
Takes the small hemlock seed and gleans insects from the bark and foliage, and nests in soft dead wood in the same stands.
Eastern white pine
Supporting / Seed plants
Takes pine seed and wedges it into a bark crevice to hammer open, and excavates its nest hole in soft dead wood of the same stands.
Norway spruce
Supporting / Seed plants
A spruce specialist that takes seed from the cones and insects from the bark, and nests in soft dead wood nearby.
Oriental spruce
Supporting / Seed plants
A spruce specialist in North America that takes seed from cones and insects from bark furrows, and a regular visitor to planted exotic conifers of the right structure. Marked plausible rather than documented because the association is with spruce as a genus in North American plantings, not a published feeding record on Picea orientalis, which is not a tree this bird evolved alongside.
Fraser fir
Supporting / Shelter plants
A conifer specialist of exactly this forest type. It excavates a nest hole in soft dead fir wood and seals the entrance with sticky resin, and takes fir seed and insects from the foliage year-round.
Plants in the catalog
Seed plants · 4
Takes the small hemlock seed and gleans insects from the bark and foliage, and nests in soft dead wood in the same stands.
Takes pine seed and wedges it into a bark crevice to hammer open, and excavates its nest hole in soft dead wood of the same stands.
A spruce specialist that takes seed from the cones and insects from the bark, and nests in soft dead wood nearby.
A spruce specialist in North America that takes seed from cones and insects from bark furrows, and a regular visitor to planted exotic conifers of the right structure. Marked plausible rather than documented because the association is with spruce as a genus in North American plantings, not a published feeding record on Picea orientalis, which is not a tree this bird evolved alongside.
Foliage plants · 1
Works the trunks and branches of spruce-fir forest head-downwards for bark insects and takes conifer seed as well, and it excavates its nest cavity in soft decaying wood - which the wood-rotting fungi and broom rust on this species supply in quantity. A structurally weak, rot-prone conifer is a better cavity tree than a sound one.
Shelter plants · 4
A specialist of exactly this forest type. It excavates a nest hole in soft dead conifer wood and then smears the entrance with sticky conifer resin, which balsam fir supplies more freely than almost any other tree in its range, and it works the foliage for insects and seed year-round.
A conifer specialist of exactly this forest type. It excavates a nest hole in soft dead fir wood and seals the entrance with sticky resin, and takes fir seed and insects from the foliage year-round.
A conifer-forest specialist that gleans bark and foliage for insects, takes conifer seed in winter, and excavates its own nest hole in soft, decayed wood - which is exactly what grand fir supplies. This tree's structural weakness, thin bark and no pitch defence against rot, is what makes it valuable here: a living trunk with a rotten core is a cavity resource, and grand fir produces those more readily than most conifers.
This is the nuthatch of the spruce-fir belt and red spruce forest is core habitat across the whole range of the tree. It excavates its own hole in soft dead wood and smears conifer resin round the entrance, so a stand needs standing dead spruce as well as living trees to hold a breeding pair. Like the finches it abandons the conifer belt entirely in a failed cone year.
Range
Breeds in conifer forest across Canada and Alaska and south through the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific ranges, the Great Lakes, and the Appalachians to the spruce-fir of the southern mountains. Winter range is unstable by design: in poor cone years the birds irrupt well south of the breeding forest.
Sources & citations
Cite this page
Use this citation for the Plotwright wildlife record. Use the source cards below to explore the references that informed its taxonomy, range, conservation, host plants, foraging, and habitat.
Plotwright. (n.d.). Red-breasted nuthatch (Sitta canadensis). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/wildlife/red-breasted-nuthatch
Sources used for this record
This record is compiled from the sources below.
Cornell Lab All About Birds: Red-breasted Nuthatch
Species account for the conifer association, cavity excavation in soft dead wood, the resin smeared at the nest entrance, and the irruptive winter movements.
GBIF: Sitta canadensis
GBIF backbone key 2484879 is an exact accepted match for Sitta canadensis in family Sittidae.
iNaturalist: Sitta canadensis
iNaturalist taxon 14823 is the active species record with community observation range data.
Wikipedia: Red-breasted nuthatch
Corroborating reference for the resin-smearing behaviour and the conifer seed diet.