In the tiny hamlet of Christopher Creek (elevation 5,894 feet/1,796 meters) in central Arizona, you'll find a restaurant called the Creekside Inn.
Now, the creek is on the other side of the street, but no matter. It was there, from my luncheon table at the restaurant, that I spied something far more interesting for a bird-watcher such as myself: Behind the building, two bird feeders were hanging from the trees—along with a small tray that was nailed into the bark of a pine—about three feet (one meter) off the ground.
Needless to say, I ate my lunch in a hurry and ran to my car to fetch my camera and tripod for an early afternoon shoot. After obtaining the proprietor's permission to hang out on the back lawn, I settled in and surveyed the scene. There were a few Steller's jays visiting the feeders, along with an acorn woodpecker and a white-breasted nuthatch. On the grass, a dark-eyed junco ("gray-headed" form) pecked away at the leftovers.
As I always do in the field, I carried with me that day a stash of "bait" for the birds—mixed birdseed; thistle seed; unshelled, unsalted, roasted peanuts; and chopped peanut kernels—all in separate plastic containers. I dropped some birdseed and unshelled peanuts on the ground, and I placed some of the peanut kernels in the small tray on the side of the tree.
At first, the Steller's jays availed themselves of the birdseed and unshelled peanuts on the grass, as well as a few kernels from the tray. Excitedly, I took a few shots of this marvelous, crested jay and prayed to the photography gods that they'd turn out OK.
Then, I heard a curious, high-pitched honking sound. A small, black-and-white object flew into the pine tree with the tray, landing about seven feet (two meters) above the platform. The bird (which I now saw was a white-breasted nuthatch) climbed down the bark head-first, swaying this way and that on the way, until it reached the tray.
The nuthatch poked one foot out on the tray, then another foot, until it was close enough to a peanut kernel to snatch it in its beak and fly off. But the bird didn't fly off right away. The nuthatch paused briefly to take a good look at me (or at potential predators), turning its head this way and that, and then it flew off into the tree to my right.
About a minute later, the bird flew back into that same pine, about seven feet above the tray, and the whole process repeated itself. It became clear to me after the fifth or sixth time this happened, that the nuthatch was storing each kernel somewhere and then quickly returning to the tray to gather up another one before another bird or a squirrel took it.
This went on for the better part of two hours. Because I had another appointment that afternoon, I had to leave this fabulous site far earlier than I desired to. But I did manage to get a few good shots of that nuthatch.
The following afternoon, I stood on the porch of a house in the nearby town Payson and watched a white-breasted nuthatch gathering black oil sunflower seeds from a hanging platform feeder. With each seed it gathered, the bird flew into the juniper tree from which the feeder was hanging. There, it proceeded to peck the seed into a small crevice in the bark of the tree. Sure enough, for about a three-foot (one-meter) vertical area of the trunk of this tree, hundreds of sunflower seeds had been stored by this nuthatch and its brethren.
Much later, I got to thinking. I had my stash of food—and so did the nuthatch!
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