My head was spinning a little as I tried to track a small bird that was moving up and down and around and around a tree last week at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. At first I thought it might be a woodpecker, but when I finally got a good look at it, I realized that it was a White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis).
In the past, most nuthatches that I have seen were moving downwards on a tree trunk, but this one was moving upwards most of the time that I was observing it. I was happy to be able to capture some shots of the nuthatch in action. Eventually I even managed to capture the “traditional” nuthatch pose in the final photo in which the nuthatch is perched upside-down with its head craned upward and backward.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Thank you for these darling images! I love nuthatches.
Thanks, Nina. They are definitely cute little birds. 🙂
Nice series of images Mike! Brightened!
Thanks, Reed.
Lovely photos, it seems that gravity doesn’t exist to this bird!
Thanks. I guess they really dig in their claws to be able to hold positions like that. 🙂
Those guys are such incredible acrobats. My brother had a bunch of them in Anchorage and they were so much fun to watch!
They sure are fun to watch, but pretty tough to photograph in motion. Usually I have to wait for them to stop and “pose”
for me to get a decent shot of one. 🙂
I sure didn’t have any luck photographing them in motion. I even found it difficult to wait for them to stop, because they hardly ever do! LOL
Patience is a key for photographing most birds and quite often the birds seem to possess more of that trait than I do. 🙂