(re-post)
Usually red-breasted nuthatches feed upside down, as is this one on the peanut feeder. (click on photos to enlarge)
When the round black sunflower feeder was added in the summer (and I figured out that this was the kind of seed it was meant to hold!) the nuthatches were immediately interested but were not at all sure how to access it.
It took them about a month to truly figure it out and now they are pros.
Like this …. dah dah. They no longer rush in and out; they will now sit for a bit and choose a seed.
As I watched the process over that month I thought it was the larger male of the summer couple that was doing all the 'work' at that feeder, but I am not sure.
What brought this to mind is that the two this morning (one in the photo), who seem smaller than the summer ones so perhaps are the next generation, both came today as if they had always been eating upright. Maybe they 'learned' from their parents.
(There are sunflower seeds in a tray on the ground providing easy access but I have seen the house finches doing fly-bys at this hanging feeder. Hanging feeders are certainly safer, in some ways.)
There is something weird and wonderful about capturing the moment of a bird in flight, as I did, unintentionally. Perhaps it is the fact that a moment has been caught. Perhaps it is the different feeling that is evoked from seeing a bird flying or seeing a bird flying. Wonderfully weird. (click on photo to see bird in flight)