Nuthatches, The

The Nuthatches.-Erik Matthysen. 1998. T. & A. D. Poyser, London. xx + 315 pp., 29 tables, 1 color plate, 17 black-and-white photographs, 103 figures, numerous black-and-white sketches. ISBN 0-85661-1018. Cloth, $39.95.-Nuthatches represent an interesting group of birds in a single family (Sittidae) and genus (Sitta). These birds are common residents throughout Europe, Asia, and North America and are familiar to many people because of their noticeable head-down manner of exploring tree trunks and their frequent visits to feeding stations. With the exception of the Eurasian Nuthatch (Sitta europaea), nuthatches are an understudied group. What is known about all nuthatch species you are likely to find in Matthysen s book, although it emphasizes behavior and ecology.

The book contains a single color plate with pictures of four species of nuthatches and has no other color illustrations. Many of the black-and-white drawings in the book are very good. The book also lacks maps of distributions of all nuthatch species. Although this information can be found in Harrap and Quinn (Chickadees, Tits, Nuthatches, and Treecreepers, Princeton University Press, 1995), having such maps in the book would have complimented the verbal description of species distributions. However, the real strength of the book lies in detailed descriptions of the behavior and ecology of different nuthatch species.

Of all the nuthatch species, only the Eurasian Nuthatch has been studied more or less thoroughly, and Erik Matthysen has carried out a large share of these studies in Belgium. Not surprisingly, more than half of the book is dedicated to the Eurasian Nuthatch, and the author presents a detailed description of this species' ecology. The author's own detailed data are meticulously summarized together with other published and unpublished studies of the species. Altogether, the description of the Eurasian Nuthatch is very impressive and is the best available for the species.

The book is organized in three parts. Part I presents a good introduction, covering general features of ecology and behavior, distribution, and evolution of species in the genus Sitta. This chapter is very useful because it compares many features of all nuthatch species. Part II is the largest part of the book (10 chapters) and provides detailed information on the biology of the Eurasian Nuthatch, covering topics ranging from taxonomy and morphology to foraging behavior, population dynamics, and the effects of forest fragmentation on populations. Part III deals with the rest of the world's nuthatches. It contains four chapters dealing with the Mediterranean nuthatches, rock nuthatches, Oriental nuthatches, and New World nuthatches, respectively. The chapter on Mediterranean nuthatches describes four species, with main topics ranging from morphology and phylogeny to vocalizations and breeding biology. Little is known about these species, but everything available is presented here. The chapter on rock nuthatches also covers a wide range of topics, from distribution and habitats to foraging and breeding biology. The chapter on Oriental nuthatches has the least amount of information because these species are so poorly known. Nevertheless, available information on all of these species expands our understanding of these interesting birds. The chapter on New World nuthatches describes the four species living in North America. Data on these species are also quite sketchy, and only a few detailed long-term studies have been conducted. This is surprising considering that some North American species (e.g. White-breasted Nuthatch [S. carolinensis]) are very common, and North America does not seem to suffer from a lack of ornithologists.

Six appendices summarize important information such as diagnostic traits of the 24 nuthatch species, sex- and age-related morphological variation in the Eurasian Nuthatch, population densities, and a life table for the Eurasian Nuthatch. The list of references at the end of the book is impressive and very helpful, providing a perfect collection of up-to-date references for all nuthatch studies.

Overall, I found the book extremely well written and informative. If you cannot find a piece of information about a nuthatch species in this book, the chances are that the information simply is not available. I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in avian ecology. Anyone interested in territorial behavior and territory establishment, food hoarding, song, breeding biology, dispersal and migration, population dynamics, and the effect of forest fragmentation on birds would find relevant information on these topics. Certainly, anybody interested in nuthatches will find this book to be an invaluable source of information.-VLADIMIR V. PRAVOSUDOV, Section of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616, USA.

Copyright American Ornithologists' Union Oct 1999
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