The Chinese nuthatch (Sitta villosa ) is a species of bird in the family Sittidae. It is a small nuthatch, measuring 11.5 cm (4.5 in) in length. The upperparts are blue-gray and the underparts from a dull buff-grayish to a cinnamon-orange; the cheeks are white. There is a marked sexual dimorphism: the adult male is distinguished by its very black crown, while that of the female is the same blue-grey as the back, or at most dark gray when the plumage is worn. In both sexes, a dark gray eyestripe extends in front of and behind the eye, topped by a clear white supercilium separating it from the crown. The song is variable, and composed of repetitions of small invariant whistles. The species feeds mainly on insects in summer and completes its diet with seeds and fruits. The nest is generally placed in the hole of a conifer. The pairs raises one brood per year, with five or six chicks.
The Chinese nuthatch lives from central China to the northeast of the country, as far as Korea and the extreme southeast of Russia. Up to three subspecies are distinguished, S. v. villosa, S. v. bangsi and S. v. corea, with slightly different distributions and colorations. The Chinese nuthatch is phylogenetically related to the Corsican nuthatch (S. whiteheadi ) and both species are themselves closely related to the North American red-breasted nuthatch (S. canadensis ). Because the bird's range is so large and numbers do not appear to decline significantly, the International Union for Conservation of Nature considers the species to be of "least concern".
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TerrestrialTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g., cats, ants, snails), as compared with aquatic animals, which liv...
Oviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
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Not a migrantAnimals that do not make seasonal movements and stay in their native home ranges all year round are called not migrants or residents.
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starts withThe Chinese nuthatch is distributed over northeast China, Korea, and the extreme southeast of Russia. It has been reported from the Russian island of Sakhalin, but may only be a vagrant there. In China, it ranges from eastern Qinghai in the west to southeastern and central Gansu, most of Shaanxi, Shanxi, southern Liaoning on the Liaoning peninsula, northern Hebei, Beijing Municipality, and northern Sichuan. It was recorded from northern North Korea, with some dispersal into surrounding areas in autumn; it was observed in North Hamgyong in July–August and, in May–November, in North Kyongsang, including North P'yongan. It is a very rare winter visitor in South Korea, with records from the mountains of Kyonggi (October–March, also July 1917) and North Kyongsang in November; the only recent South Korean record is from the Kwangnung Experimental Forest, near Song, Kangwon province, in March 1968. In the peninsula, it is closely associated with Japanese Red Pine (Pinus densiflora ) forests. In China, it inhabits coniferous forests (Pinus, Picea ), sometimes mixed with oaks (Quercus ) and birches (Betula ).
In the summer of 2006, Dutchmen on an entomological expedition incidentally observed a pair of nuthatches nesting in the Altai, more or less on the crossing of China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia, in a pure larch (Larix sp.) forest at 2,150 m (85,000 in) altitude. They observed that the male had a black crown, the female without black crown, and said that both have a distinct dark eyestripe topped by a white supercilium. If the European nuthatch is present in the region (subspecies asiatica ), the observers assure that the black crown of the male and the small size of the individuals exclude a misidentification with this Eurasian species. The closest species geographically that could fit this description is the Chinese nuthatch, which would then be far from its known distribution (1,500 km (930 mi) from the breeding range), and which has more buffy underparts than the observed individuals. To observers, this record could be indicative of a much wider distribution of the Chinese species, or the bird could be an as yet undescribed species related to S. whiteheadi and S. villosa. These two species with distributions 7,000 km (4,300 mi) apart are reminiscent of the case of the two blue magpies of the genus Cyanopica, the azure-winged magpie (C. cyanus ) from eastern Asia, and the Iberian magpie (C. cooki ) from Portugal and Spain. The exact identity of the Altay breeding pair requires focused research. The history of the discovery and description of the Algerian nuthatch exemplifies how difficult it may be to detect and describe highly isolated populations of nuthatches. In June 2017, during the breeding season, two Swiss ornithologists searched for this nuthatch at the reporting site, staying five nights to prospect in the surrounding forests from the tree line to the valley floor. Three breeding pairs with at least one and two young nuthatches S. europaea asiatica were identified and were the only nuthatch species around. Despite actively looking for food, all the adult nuthatches responded to the species' song replay, and most of the nuthatches were first detected by their call and/or song. The authors conclude that the 2006 sighting was probably of the local Eurasian subspecies, which may have odd-plumaged, or abraded or stained asiatica.
In summer, the Chinese nuthatch feeds almost exclusively on insects, which are also the sole source of food for the young. From April to August, studies in China showed that 98.5% of its diet consisted of insects, including beetles (Coleoptera ), Hymenoptera, butterflies, bugs (Heteroptera ), Homoptera (including aphids and Cicadidae ), Neuroptera and flies (Diptera ). It consumes larger insects by holding them with its legs and shredding them with its bill; it can also capture insects in flight. Like other nuthatches, the Chinese nuthatch stores food. In winter, the Chinese nuthatch's diet consists primarily of nuts, seeds, and tree fruits. The species often takes part in mixed-species foraging flocks in winter, where it is observed in pairs.
In Jilin, the breeding season takes place from late April to early May. The nest is usually placed high in the cavity of a conifer (more than 9 m (350 in) above the ground, on average), but can also be built in a rotten stump or in an old building. Nest entrance is about 35 mm (1.4 in) in diameter (does not apparently, daub the nest hole with mud or resin). Both partners build the nest within seven to eight days, making a bowl from plant fibers, feathers, and grasses. The egg–laying has four to nine eggs – usually a clutch of five or six: eggs white, marked with reddish-brown and measuring 15 mm–17 mm × 12.5 mm–13 mm (0.59 in–0.67 in × 0.49 in–0.51 in). The female incubates alone while the male feeds her, and the young hatch from the egg after 15–17 days of incubation. Both parents participate in their feeding, and raise only one brood in a year.
The range is estimated at 1,810,000 km2 (700,000 sq mi) according to BirdLife International. Total numbers are not known, but Mark Brazil's guide to East Asian birds places the species in the infrequent category in China (corresponding to a range of 100 to 10,000 mature pairs) and less than 1,000 migratory individuals are estimated in Korea. Populations are possibly declining due to the destruction of the bird's habitat, but the species is considered to be of "least concern" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A 2009 study attempted to predict the impact that climate change may have on the distribution of several nuthatch species in Asia, modelling two scenarios; the Chinese nuthatch could see its distribution decrease by 79.8–80.4% by the years 2040 to 2069.
