Nuthatches | Sittidae

Boomklevers | Trepadores

These are the only birds that walk head-first down a trunk and along the underside of a branch without using the tail as a prop: the tail is short, and the bird holds on with one foot up and one foot down, with long curved claws. Bark crevices are therefore inspected from an angle that birds which only climb upwards never get to see. A seed or nut is wedged into a crack and hacked open with short hard blows of the bill; in late summer such stores are pushed into the bark and covered with a flake of lichen or bark. Nesting is in cavities, and some species smear the rim of the entrance with resin or wipe it with a crushed insect. The call is nasal and tooting and is heard all year round. In several species young from the previous year help the pair to feed the brood, and in winter dozens of birds roost pressed together in the same hole.