Chinese Nuthatch

The Chinese nuthatch or snowy-browed nuthatch (Sitta villosa) is a species of bird in the family Sittidae. It is a small nuthatch, measuring 11.5 cm (4.5 in) in length. The upperparts are blue-grey and the underparts from a dull buff-greyish to a cinnamon-orange; the cheeks are white. There is a marked sexual dimorphism: the adult male is distinguished by its very black crown, while that of the female is the same blue-grey as the back, or at most dark grey when the plumage is worn. In both sexes, a dark grey eyestripe extends in front of and behind the eye, topped by a clear white supercilium separating it from the crown. The song is variable, and composed of repetitions of small invariant whistles. The species feeds mainly on insects in summer and completes its diet with seeds and fruits. The nest is generally placed in the hole of a conifer. The pairs raises one brood per year, with five or six chicks.

The Chinese nuthatch lives from central China to the northeast of the country, as far as Korea and the extreme southeast of Russia. The Chinese nuthatch is phylogenetically related to the Corsican nuthatch (S. whiteheadi) and both species are themselves closely related to the North American red-breasted nuthatch (S. canadensis). Because the bird's range is so large and numbers do not appear to decline significantly, the International Union for Conservation of Nature considers the species to be of "least concern". Three regional subspecies are distinguished, with slightly different colours.