Donor BHNU from the Arkansas Ouachitas are now at home in the Missouri Ozarks

We offer this update on the Brown-headed Nuthatch (BHNU) reintroduction in Missouri undertaken by Central Hardwoods Joint Venture (CHJV) partners. In the Missouri Ozarks, the US Forest Service and Missouri Dept. of Conservation (MDC) are restoring oak-pine woodland, which in turn is providing ample habitat for nuthatches to recolonize after a long absence. From whence the nuthatches?

Photo by Matt Tillett, Flickr Creative Commons

The answer is birds reintroduced from the Arkansas Ouachitas! The MDC reports that in their monthly Brown-headed Nuthatch survey work, Frank Thompson, Kristen Heath, Tom Bonnot, Shelby Timm and Sarah Kendrick have found nuthatches excavating nesting cavities, and females are beginning to incubate eggs. This is a huge sigh of relief for the reintroduction effort, and everyone is very excited. Since their release in Aug-Sept 2020, they have watched these birds explore available habitat in the area, exhibit normal nuthatch behaviors of foraging and social interactions in groups, begin to spread out and pair up to form territories, and now they are excavating nesting cavities, taking nesting material to cavities, and incubating!

They just needed some help getting there! Kudos to CHJV partners for their effective habitat efforts, and for taking such good care of “our” birds!

We are all thrilled at this natural progression as the birds have settled into their new surroundings over the last 8 months. Partners will continue to find nest cavities and monitor them throughout the breeding season and prepare for year 2 of the nuthatch reintroduction to be held Aug-Sept 2021!

Read more about this project from the Missouri Dept. of Conservation.