I've always loved watching Nuthatch. As youngsters, our parents, would take my sister and I to Sandringham, on the way to the coast, for a picnic in the woods. Here we baited the felled stumps with bread, cheese and crisps and would wait! And for me the Nuthatch was always the most impressive and prized visitor, even out-trumping the noisy Jay and brief but great, Great-spotted Woodpeckers.
I still have vivid memories of the Nuthatch visiting these stumps and being in awe. I also remember when I was very young, our October half term holiday to a Ripon caravan park, in Yorkshire, and the Nuthatch gripping the feeders outside our window, in the snow(!).
Nuthatch was also one of the first species I properly got to grips with, when I got my first prime lens in 2005. My Canon 20D and Sigma 500mm, were my start kit and I really enjoying photographing Nuthatch in Cambridgeshire that winter.
Last week, in Norway, I could hear Nuthatch regularly from 'our house'. It wasn't until the last few days of our stay that they finally gave themselves up for photos and pre-longed, fantastic views. This rather splendid northern subspecies, with it's cold white underparts, compared to the buff-ness of the British subspecies, was a joy to watch at such close quarters.
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