White-tailed Nuthatch Sitta himalayensis

White-tailed Nuthatch 

Sitta himalayensis

Perhaps not too surprising for a forested reserve, Jabarkhet has no less than 3 species of Nuthatch. There is the White-tailed, shown here, Chestnut-bellied, and the rarer Kashmir Nuthatch.

 With a greyish-blue back and wings, orangey-brown chest and belly, usually with white around the face, and their feeding habit they are easily picked out as a family. However separating out the three in the reserve can be quite difficult. The Chestnut-bellied has a rather dark cinnamon breast with a white chin. But the other two are very similar, and the white feathers in the tail of this one are hard to see. 

Nuthatches are quite a vocal family, giving mostly clear whistles as their song, but with a series of chirrups and squeaks as well. The song of the White-tailed is  a very clear distinctive whistle.

They are mostly insectivorous, and specialise by feeding on the trunks and larger branches of trees. They do this in a head-down posture, starting high-up (right up into the canopy) and working their way down, often to quite a low  level. They then fly back up again and repeat the process. They do this with energetic jerky movements working around a tree, even hanging upside down on bigger branches, and continuing to search. As the name implies they will also eat larger seeds and nuts, fixing the latter into a crevice and hammering loudly with the beak to crack it open and get the food.