Canada, Mexico, St Pierre and Miquelon (B) (P), USA (B).
Vagrant to Iceland, United Kingdom.
Breeds from south-eastern Alaska (eastern from Kodiak I) and southern Canada (southern from southern Yukon, including Queen Charlotte Is and Vancouver, northern Saskatchewan and central Manitoba, and east to south-central Quebec, southern Labrador and Newfoundland, including islands of Prince Edward, Anticosti, and St Pierre and Miquelon), southern in western USA (absent much of eastern Washington) to mountains in California (excluding immediate coast, but breeds irregularly Santa Cruz I) and Rocky Mts and Great Basin from western and southern Montana (also isolated forests in east) south to central and western Colorado, eastern Arizona and southern New Mexico, also western South Dakota (Black Hills) and irregularly south-western North Dakota and northern Nebraska; in east, breeds south to north-eastern and eastern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, southern Michigan, northern Ohio, central Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and northern Connecticut, extending southern in Appalachian Mts to eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.
Population
Estimated population is 18,000,000 (2010).
Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) [XC602490]
by Richard E. Webster from Wilton, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States (call)
Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) [XC110382]
by Andrew Spencer from Sweat Creek, Okanogan Co., Washington, United States (call)
Subspecies
No subspecies.
A member of a species group that contains also Corsican Nuthatch (Sitta whiteheadi), Algerian Nuthatch (Sitta ledanti), Krueper's Nuthatch (Sitta krueperi), Snowy-browed Nuthatch (Sitta villosa) and Yunnan Nuthatch (Sitta yunnanensis), and all sometimes thought to form a superspecies. Formerly treated as conspecific with Corsican Nuthatch (Sitta whiteheadi) and Snowy-browed Nuthatch (Sitta villosa). Close relationship with these two supported by recent data on mitochondrial DNA, which indicate that all three form a sister-clade to Krueper's Nuthatch (Sitta krueperi) and Algerian Nuthatch (Sitta ledanti) (no Yunnan Nuthatch (Sitta yunnanensis) material was available for analysis), with a genetic distance of approximately 10% between the two clades.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet