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Eurasian Nuthatch Pair Turned a Brick Wall Cavity Into a Nest in Central Tver

Eurasian nuthatch in Saratov, Russia
Research · Behaviour

A pair of Eurasian nuthatches (Sitta europaea), belonging to the subspecies S. e. europaea, used a cavity inside the plastered brick wall of a two-storey building in central Tver, Russia. A study published in 2026 describes the unusual nest site and follows the pair’s construction behaviour in detail.

The birds were observed from early March through the first ten days of April 2022. More than 20 hours of visual observations and about six hours of video were used to record visits to the cavity, time spent inside it, collection and delivery of nesting material, plastering activity and the roles of the two partners.

Both birds contributed to the work, but not in exactly the same way. At times the female arranged material that formed the nest base while the male plastered the cavity, including the inner surface around the entrance. The birds usually entered the cavity one at a time, sometimes waiting at the entrance with material until the partner emerged. With no pines nearby, they collected decayed wood from dead boxelder trunks only about 10–12 metres from the building.

The nest-building period for this pair extended for more than a month. The author notes that detailed scientific descriptions of Eurasian nuthatches nesting in building walls are extremely scarce and discusses the Tver case in the context of a broader trend toward increasing synanthropization—that is, greater use of human-built environments—by this subspecies in central Russia.

Sources and image credit

  1. Vinogradov, A. A. (2026). Случай гнездования обыкновенного поползня Sitta europaea в полости стены кирпичного здания. Вестник Тверского государственного университета. Серия: Биология и экология, 2(82), 42–71. https://doi.org/10.26456/vtbio460Primary research article. The repository deposited the article on 26 August 2026. More than 20 hours of observations and about six hours of video documented nesting behaviour of a Sitta europaea europaea pair using a cavity in a brick building wall in central Tver, Russia.

Image: Tatiana Gerus — Eurasian Nuthatch of the nominate subspecies Sitta europaea europaea in Saratov, Russia, photographed 20 March 2011; Wikimedia Commons. Representative Russian image, not one of the Tver study birds. CC BY-SA 2.0. · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source

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