By Nigel Higgins.

I have kept small softbills for over ten years and I have had my fair share of success with them. Last august I picked up a pair of Nuthatches from a friend of mine in Norfolk. They wintered together in a flight measuring 8ftx8ftx7ft high.

I placed a nest box with a 2inch hole, the size a Cockateil would use, with bark covering the outside of the box, in their flight. I also placed a large cut up tree trunk in the centre of the flight, and also a selection of various sized branches. The Nuthatch does not require any cover providing.

Feeding is extremely simple. A selection of beapher soft food, red peanuts, sunflower seed and a couple of mealworms daily. If you feel it is required, to heighten the condition of the Nuthatch, add grated cheese and mashed hardboiled egg to the soft food.

The difference between this pair of nuthatches compared to any other I have kept in the past, was that they were very attentive towards each other. They both fed together and perched on the nest box together. Right from the offset it looked very promising with this pair.

The hen bird will start to mud up as early as the beginning of March, therefore you must make available a good supply of sloppy mud. My pair did not do anything even though I watered a part of the aviary floor until it caused a muddy patch. Every day I watered, and in doing so, the patch remained wet and very muddy.

April arrived, and other breeders were telling me there pairs had completed the mudding up stage, and filled there nest box with leaves. My pair were doing nothing and I was starting to get worried and disappointed.

As the end of April approached, I was hearing from friends that their pairs were sitting on eggs, while mine had not even started to mud up the entrance to the nest box. I was convinced that another season without producing young Nuthatches was looming.

On the 28th April, I went to feed my birds and noticed the hen Nuthatch fly up from the ground and straight to the entrance of the box. It appeared that she was pecking around the entrance hole, and on closer inspection I realised that she had finally started to mud up. Backwards and forwards, constantly carrying mud, filling in any hole that let in light. She did this until 4th May.

While mudding up, she also started taking leaves in to her nest box, tirelessly taking turns with both activities. Three days later on the 7th May she had finished mudding up but still carried on taking leaves in to the nest box. I was sitting in my conservatory having a cup of tea waiting to go to work, and I witnessed the hen bird leave the nest box and land on the tree trunk. The cock bird started doing his display and danced around the hen, who in return was squatting waiting for him until he then tread her. It was a fascinating site to witness, and over the next couple of days I watched them doing this regularly. Things were now looking now looking very promising.

On the 11th May the hen disappeared to her nest box, only coming out to feed. I was becoming quietly confident that she was laying her eggs, but also wary that it could just be wishful thinking on my part. I need not have worried because on the 18th May, while she was feeding, I checked the nest.

Now I have to say, when nuthatches vacate the nest, they cover the eggs or chicks with leaves, so I checked very carefully and there were eggs. I was now overjoyed, and left them to it.

The Nuthatch cock bird is supposed to feed the hen while she incubates the eggs, but, for some reason this cock did nothing. The 28th May must have been the day the chicks had hatched. Nuthatches start incubating after the last egg has been laid so all of the eggs that were going to hatch, would hatch on this day. I had seen the hen taking in mini mealworms, dusted with a multivitamin and calcium powder, which I started supplying a few days earlier.

I was now ecstatic. I wanted to look but I stopped myself as I could not be certain of the hatch day. I could not risk her deserting her chicks. Over the next five days or so she was the perfect mother. Again the cock bird did nothing in helping out feeding the chicks at all. The hen bird did all the work.

On the 2nd June, the day I decided to ring the chicks, I placed a bike inner tube rubber over the rings and cut them to the size of the ring. I waited until the hen left the box and I entered into their flight. I had checked to see how many chicks there were an hour earlier so I had in my hand five size G rings coated with this bike rubber. Within ten minutes all five were rung. They all looked nice and healthy which was no surprise as the hen was worth her weight in gold. She was superb. I checked them a week later, and they were growing well. Again, I checked them on the 18th June. I had a quick look and they were now fully feathered. I felt like the cat that got the cream, I was so happy, my first nest of nuthatches.

Luckily, the following week, I had a week of work so on the 21st June, the chicks were now 24 days old. I watched the first chick emerge from the nest box. To my horror, as soon as it did, the cock bird attacked. Raising his wings, pecking at this young birds head. I immediately entered the flight and removed him to a 4ft cage in my bird room. This is something I did not want to do, risking stressing the youngsters. Within one hour, all five were flying around the flight. The business with the cock did nothing to upset the hen, she carried on as usual feeding her needy chicks. She truly was a remarkable bird.

How quickly elation can turn to devastation. On the 27th June, again while I was sitting having a morning cup of tea, I noticed only five nuthatches flying round the aviary. I waited until I had finished my cuppa, hoping in the mean time the sixth would fly up from the ground, but it never appeared. I entered the flight expecting to find a dead chick, but to my horror there on the floor was the body of the mother. Unbelievable. The young had been out of the nest box only six days, and now their mother was dead. I knew it was no good putting the cock back in with them because he might kill them all. I had no choice but to catch them up and put them in a flight cage and have a go at hand feeding them.

I could not believe it. I tried prising one of the chicks beaks open but it was impossible. My worst nightmare, I am going to lose the lot. I also had to go to work. My partner had agreed to help out alongside my daughter. They decided that one would open the chicks beak, while the other fed it. Desperately, this was all we could do. Twenty minutes later while I was driving to work I received a phone call from home. My partner watched the Nuthatch chicks through the bird room window and witnessed two of them feeding themselves on the mealworms I had left in a dish. I was pretty much relieved, while still upset, but I knew if two were feeding themselves the others would soon follow.

On my return from work all five were alive and as mad as hell. As soon as I went into the bird room they went crazy, flying around the cage hitting of the cage front, so I entered, fed the other birds, and got out as quickly as possible. The next morning I checked them early. One young chick, a cock bird, had died but the other four were fit. I placed more live food in a dish and left for work, my partner keeping me updated as the day went on.

After a couple of days I started to mix the live food with soft food. A couple of weeks later they were eating soft food only with mealworms as treats.

The young Nuthatches turned out to be two cocks and two hens.

To summarise it all, this has been the best breeding season I have had for a few years. I lost the best Nuthatch hen I have ever owned but on the other side I have now achieved what I set out to do and that was to breed Nuthatches.