Chinese Nuthatch

The Chinese, or snowy-browed, nuthatch is a small 11–11.5 cm tree-climbing bird. It has blue-grey upperparts, white cheeks, buff-grey to cinnamon underparts and a white supercilium above a dark eye-stripe. Adult males have a strongly black crown, while females have a crown closer to the blue-grey back. Jules Verreaux described Sitta villosa in 1865 from material sent from Beijing; villosa refers to its long, silky plumage (Wikipedia, general species account).

Its range runs from central and northeastern China through the Korean Peninsula to extreme southeastern Russia. It inhabits cool coniferous and mixed forests from low mountains into subalpine zones. The Korean form has been named Sitta villosa corea from specimens collected southeast of Seoul, though some authorities merge it with the nominate form. Repeated clear whistles form the variable song. The species' small size and bold pale eyebrow help separate it from larger regional nuthatches (Chinese Academy species account; Sitta villosa mitochondrial study).