I have not been deer hunting for almost eight years and can truly say that, at times, I miss going into a winter’s snowy woods in search of an elusive deer. Although I always buy a hunting license, with the intention of going hunting, I remember the frozen feet and fingers and wonder what I was thinking of.

Now, my memories of hunting are enough for me.

I remember one cold December afternoon, while deer hunting with my muzzle-loading rifle, I had been standing on watch for several hours when the sun began to set in the western sky. The temperature was in the 20s and falling as fast as the sun was setting. After pulling my coat collar up, I began stomping my feet to warm them.

Next I removed my fingers from the sleeves of my gloves and bunched the fingers together in my palms, trying to warm them. All of this done while trying not to move about and give away my position to any deer that could be in the area.

While on watch, I continually search the woods for deer but also for anything unusual. That day my stand was by an old fallen and rotting tree, with large limbs still attached that were not touching the ground.

I noticed a nuthatch that had landed on the tree and watched as it hopped along the underside of a branch. Suddenly, the bird disappeared, and I assumed that it had.

About 15 minutes later I noticed a nuthatch on the same limb and assumed it was the bird that I had seen earlier. It also hopped around on the underside of the limb. Suddenly, I heard a commotion as two birds fell toward the ground before taking flight. One nuthatch flew back up to the limb and disappeared, while the other hopped about on the dead tree, giving off an excited call that sounded like wee-wee-wee-wee.

The bird stayed on the tree for several minutes, moving about and calling excitedly, before it flew away.

Later at quitting time, I examined the underside of the tree limb and found a den hole in the limb. As I moved closer to examine the hole a nuthatch flew out, giving me a startle as it almost hit me in the face.

Our white-breasted nuthatch belongs to the Sittidae family, which comes from the Greek word sitte, a name used by Aristotle for a bird that pecks at the bark of trees. Its scientific name is Sitta carolinensis. The scientific name Sitta carolinensis means of Carolina because the first white-breasted nuthatch was collected in South Carolina.

Our word nuthatch comes from the bird’s habit of hacking open seeds and nuts with its bill. The hatch is a corruption of the work hack.

There are 22 species in the world, with only four species in North America. They are the only tree-trunk foraging birds that regularly feed while moving head downward, giving the nuthatch the nickname of upside-down bird and devil-down-head. By feeding head down the tree, the nuthatches find food in the bark crevices overlooked by “up the tree” birds, such as the creepers and small woodpeckers.

Three species have been found in Pennsylvania: red-breasted, white-breasted and the brown-headed nuthatch, which is listed as a rare visitor to the southern part of the state. Of the three, the white-breasted appears to be the most common. It is the largest of the American nuthatches, spending most of its life in large trees, where it hops over the bark of the trunk and main branches, while looking for food in bark crevices. The bird will sometimes hop about on the ground under trees in search of nuts and insects.

Studies have shown that resident pairs remain together throughout the year in a feeding territory of 25-50 acres. Each will often go off alone in the winter woods but always stay within calling distance of its mate.

Unlike creepers and woodpeckers, the nuthatches do not use their tails to brace themselves against the tree trunk. They grasp the tree trunk through foot power alone. Nuthatches are short and stocky; the sexes are outwardly alike; their thin bills are straight and sharp-pointed; the nostrils are somewhat covered with stiff feathers; their wings are long and their legs are short, with long toes that have sharp claws that enable them to cling vertically to the tree trunk.

Nuthatches roost alone in either holes that they have excavated in trees or those of a woodpecker.

I later decided to write about the incident with the nuthatches and went back to take some pictures of the fallen tree.

When examining the tree limb, I found that it now had three holes. Since it was the middle of the day the holes were empty, allowing me to examine the interior. After looking in the holes, I knew why the birds were fighting over who would spend the night. Sleeping inside the hole would be much warmer than sitting on a tree limb open to the weather.

Although I didn’t see any deer while hunting that day, the nuthatches made the hunt one that was put in my memory bank.

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.