Eurasian Nuthatch

Eurasian Nuthatch (Sitta europaea) is a compact short-tailed bird with blue-grey upperparts, a black eye stripe, long pointed bill and underparts varying from white to buff. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It climbs tree trunks both upward and downward while searching bark for insects and seeds, wedges hard foods into crevices and nests in a cavity whose entrance it narrows with mud. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. Japanese records place it within the country's documented avifauna as a resident, migrant or visitor (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Japan occurrence records).