September bird of the month: Varied Sittellas

5 facts about Varied Sittellas

Five amazing facts about Varied Sittellas! 

1. They forage by spiralling along tree trunks

Varied Sittellas forage by spiralling along tree trunks, probing cracks and fissures as they go. Unlike treecreepers, which also spiral around trunks but always moving upwards, sittellas generally spiral down the tree trunks.

2. They have upward-pointing beaks

Specially adapted for feeding in this way, a sittella’s beak points slightly upwards for more efficient probing. This orientation is unusual among birds, where down-curved or down-pointing beaks are far more usual.

3. Their name comes from Europe

This upward-pointing beak reminded the pioneers of the Nuthatch of Europe, which has a similar bill. The Greek name for a nuthatch is Sitta, and the name of our bird reflects that – a ‘small sitta’, namely a ‘sittella’.

4. Their nests are almost invisible

The nests of the sittella are almost invisible. Being roughly conical, they fit neatly into the fork of a branch, and they are covered with a coat of pieces of bark taken from the nest tree – or one like it – and bound in spider webs, so that it blends in completely.

5. They come in many forms

There were once considered to be five different species of sittellas across Australia, but now they’re all treated as a single species, even though the different forms appear quite different from one another.