Preferring wooded areas, it appears in small groups in winter. It nests in cavities and bird boxes, and being non-migratory, often uses these same shelters for winter roosts.
The tufted titmouse is restricted to the eastern half of the country, but it has close relatives in the west.
“What a lovely child of God it is, soarin’ up there,” said Fr. Hogan in the novel “Children of Hunger.” And he added, “Of course, down on the ground it’s a buzzard. Lots of things in the world seem to be like that.”
Thus, a fictional view of the turkey vulture and the less widespread black vulture. The turkey vulture summers up into Canada and permanently ranges the southern United States. It is a common sight along roadsides and sometimes above cities. These common carrion eaters are natural scavengers, and highly useful ones, but they are a little hard to admire except at a distance. A large bird, often more than 30 inches long and with great wingspread, they don’t need to be fed. Our driving habits and our careless disposal of garbage generally provide plenty of food for them.
WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH (Sitta carolinensis)
With a length of 6 inches, this resident of the United States, southern Canada and Mexico might readily be mistaken by a casual observer for a small woodpecker. But its call—an oft-repeated “yank”—is very unwoodpecker-like. Also unlike either woodpeckers or creepers, it climbs downward head first as easily as upward, seeming to defy the laws of gravity. “Nuthatch” was suggested by its habit of wedging nuts in crevices of bark so as to break them open by blows from a sharp, strong bill. The white-breast gets its living from the trunks and branches of trees, over which it walks from daylight to dark. Insects and spiders constitute about half of its food. More than half of its vegetable food consists of acorns and other nuts or large seeds. It’s a bird of the wooded suburbs, and will feed at sheltered stations offering suet, sunflower seeds, or nuts.
WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW (Zonotrichia leucophrys)
From tail-tip to beak, this perky flyer is 7 inches long and looks like the white-throated sparrow, but the latter has a yellow spot beside its eyes. White-crown breeds in the high country of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the Pacific coast; it winters in the southern half of the United States and in northern Mexico.
