This bird spends most of it's life in large trees in areas such as forests, farm woodlots, country towns and parks. White-breasted Nuthatches work their way down a tree trunk searching for grubs and insects in the bark crevices that other up-climbing tree foragers, such as the woodpecker, would miss. He can hang upside down, swinging from tiny branches. Sometimes you will find the White-breasted hopping about on the ground under trees in search of nuts and insects.

Nuthatches belong to the bird family Sittidae which is a Greek word and used by Aristotle for a bird that pecks at the bark of trees. It is also a corruption of the older English name "nuthack" which the British nuthatches were given because of their habit of wedging nuts, insects and other food in tree crevices and then hacking them open with its long, sturdy bill.

Nuthatches are a thickset, stub-tailed, nervous little bird that scurry down tree trunks headfirst, hops, jerks, takes short jumps and moves along underside of branches in the same way with their back to the ground. They fly up and down like woodpeckers. When climbing down tree trunks, nuthatches depend entirely upon their claws. They stretch one foot forward under the breast and the other back under the tail, and hitch nimbly down the trees, digging in with their strong hind toes. The reason why these birds climb downward is that they may find food in bark crevices overlooked by birds that climb upward like tree creepers and small woodpeckers.