Fledgling Nuthatch ( Sitta europaea )

As folk who have been reading my journal for any length of time will know I have a soft spot for nuthatches.  This is because when I was young and starting my birding there were no nuthatches in the north of England.  In the early 70s the surveying for the first Breeding Bird Atlas the majority were south of a line between the Wirral and Humber, by the Atlas of 2007-11 the majority of Tetrads south of a line between Ary and Edinburgh had Nuthatches.

Nuthatches have been breeding a couple of hundred yards away for years.  Knowing this you would expect fledglings to be seen at the feeders regularly.  You would be wrong!  The two we saw today are the first I have seen in the garden.