Nuthatch: The 'very attractive' birds which you can hear by its hammering into nuts

Nuthatches insert beechnuts, acorns or hazelnuts into a crack in the bark, then use their woodpecker-like beaks to split them open.

The name nuthatch is a gradual modification of this bird's original Middle English name of nuthak or nut hacker.

They are very attractive birds with a slatey-blue back, dark line through the eye, and light underparts which take on a rosy tint in spring.

Another distinctive ability is that the nuthatch can walk head first down a tree trunk, the only European bird able to do so.

It does so without using its tail as a support, like woodpeckers, but relies solely on its strong claws.

Nuthatch pairs stay together in their own territories throughout the winter although they might join a tit flock passing by or venture to garden bird feeders later in the year where they will extract peanuts from a feeder before carrying them off.

Nuthatches have enjoyed an increase in population, probably helped by global warming. At one time they were regarded as a bird of southern England but expanded north throughout the last century, occupying new areas of Cumbria and Northumberland in the 1980s and first breeding in Scotland in 1989.

They are now firmly established in most of Yorkshire although they are still scarce in East Yorkshire's arable farmland.

More hawfinches have been arriving including sightings around the car park at the Yorkshire Arboretum at Castle Howard, North Yorkshire and at Roche Abbey, South Yorkshire.

There was a rare inland sighting of a purple sandpiper at Ingbirchworth reservoir, South Yorkshire.

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