Last week at the Erie St Cemetery in downtown Cleveland, I noticed an unusual Nuthatch that I initially identified as a female Red-breasted.  The head was black with single white line on each side of the face and the back a bluish-gray.  It acted like a Red-breasted moving a bit frenetically along and between the branches of trees.  What gave me pause was the nearly white breast of the bird.  I saw it mostly in shadow and decided that I was just not seeing a very pale beige or rufous breast.

I birded the Cemetery yesterday at lunch with my friend Lynn.  While she was taking a phone call for work (tough to be on call while birding), I spotted the same bird.  This time in better light, the breast looked white or whitish-grey with a bit of light brown color below the wings on the flanks.  In addition, the bird seemed a tad bit larger than a Red-breasted to me.  We were unable to relocate the bird for Lynn to see.  

Does anyone know of any hybridization between White-breasted and Red-breasted Nuthatches?  That is what this bird appeared to be.  If anyone gets a chance to get to the Cemetery over the next couple of days, I'd appreciate a second opinion.

The bird was seen on both days on the north side about one third of the way in from 9th Street near the stone building that sits along the road.  The bird moved from the trees along the north wall to the trees near the building before I was unable to relocate.

Also at the Cemetery yesterday:

Wood Thrush (2)
Veery (2)
Hermit Thrush (1)
Brown Thrasher (1)
White-throated Sparrows
White-crowned Sparrows
Chipping Sparrows
Field Sparrow (1)
Song Sparrows
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Northern Flicker

Good birding.

Tim Colborn
North Olmsted, OH

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