GAP Analysis Predicted Distribution Map

White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis)

Species Code: SICAR

Legend:
= Core Habitat
= Marginal Habitat

Breeding Range Map
The green area shows the predicted habitats for breeding only. The habitats were identified using 1991 satellite imagery, Breeding Bird Atlas (BBA), other datasets and experts throughout the state, as part of the Washington Gap Analysis Project. Habitats used during non-breeding months and migratory rest-stops were not mapped.

Metadata (Data about data or how the map was made)

Click to enlarge distribution map

Other maps & Information:

Breeding Bird Atlas
NatureMapping observations
during breeding season
NatureMapping observations
throughout the year

Locally in eastern Washington, this Nuthatch is fairly common at low elevations in Garry Oak and Ponderosa Pine. In western Washington, it is very local, rare, and seriously declining; now it is mostly confined to te Steilacoom/Fort Lewis (Pierce County) area and the plains around Vancouver, especially at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge (Clark County). It is rare and local in Skamania County (WC).

Core zones were Ponderosa Pine, Oak, Interior Douglas-fir; steppe zones at the Basin edge; and very locally in the Woodland/Prairie Mosaic and Willamette Valley zones. It was peripheral in Grand Fir. Habitats were modeled similarly to the Pygmy Nuthatch, with the Grand Fir zone treated like the Interior Douglas-fir zone, west-side zones treated like the Oak zone, and with the exception that in the Oak, Willamette Valley, and Woodland/Prairie Mosaic zones, open-canopy, hardwood forest (often oak dominated in these zones) were also good habitats.

Two subspecies of White-breasted Nuthatch breed in Washington: S.c.aculeata is the rare west-side form and S.c.tenuissima is the widespread east-side form. S.c.tenuissima inhabits Ponderosa Pine and Garry Oak woodlands throughout the foothills of eastern Washington. S.c.aculeata resides strictly in oak or oak-conifer woodlands in western Washington at the north end of the Willamette Valley zone (i.e., the plains around Vancouver) and in oak woodlands near American Lake and Lakewood in western Pierce County.

Translated from the Washington Gap Analysis Bird Volume by Uchenna Bright
Text edited by Gussie Litwer
Webpage designed by Dave Lester