Has anyone ever heard of nuthatches eating meat, or taking insects from carcasses?
This evening I noticed a white-breasted nuthatch on the ground at the base of our big boxelder tree, pecking vigorously at something. At first I assumed he was working on a fallen piece of bark, but he was so enthusiastic about it that I picked up the binoculars to get a better look. It turned out that the "bark" had a tail... it was a dead deer mouse. Now, I can't be sure the bird was eating meat from the carcass, but when I went outside to look, there were no obvious invertebrates on the body -- though even if there were, that's not the variety of invertebrates I'd think of nuthatches as eating. So, is this a nuthatch feeding behavior I just haven't heard of before, or is it as unusual as it seemed?... Christine on the shores of Glen Lake, Minnetonka, Hennepin Co.
