Red-bellied Nuthatch

Red-bellied Nuthatch [now Red-breasted Nuthatch]
Sitta canadensis, Linnaeus
Octavo edition, plate 248

“While the Brown-headed Nuthatch perambulates the southern districts, the Red-bellied species spends its time in the eastern and northern States, the two dividing the country, as it were, nearly equally between them. The southern limits of this little bird seldom extend farther than Maryland . . . The nest is dug in a low dead stump, seldom more than four feet from the ground, both the male and the female working by turns, until they have got to the depth of about fourteen inches. The eggs, four in number, are small, and of a white colour, tinged with a deep blush, and sprinkled with reddish dots . . . Their almost incessant hink, hink, hink-hink, is heard at every hop they take . . .”

John James Audubon, Birds of America (New York: J.J. Audubon; Philadelphia: J. B. Chevalier, 1840-1844), vol. 4, p. 179.

View bird in the National Audubon Society Guide to North American Birds.