Nuthatch

 

Photos have been downgraded in size and quality for the Internet and have been marked as copyright by the photographer.

Full-sized, unmarked photos are available on request.

Slate blue/grey back, bandit eye-stripe and usually a russet underside, nuthatches often eat and run down trees upside down.

Juveniles have a pale front. A northern European race also has a whitish underside, but these are probably juveniles on the turn to developing russet colour.
 

              A wet and bedraggled nuthatch