When I checked my backyard feeder the other day I noted a scrap of paper, perhaps part of a label, hanging from the perch bar and obviously that anomaly caught my eye. What caught my companion eye was evidence that this scrap of paper was entirely something else, and it had a name ... nuthatch. There was a White-breasted nuthatch hanging upside down from the perch bar of the feeder, assuming a rakish angle of dangle, and not moving at all. It was fix-ed, bereft of motion, immobile, decidedly apoplectic, transfixed as if petrified. Cool! I made a sandwich and looked again. Same old position. OK, this was freaky. I proceeded to eat my sandwich. Stasis continued. I figured that I should get a picture of this, so I did. I finished my sandwich and the nuthatch came back to life. No Narcam required. What a relief! No, wait, shouldn’t I have gotten a video of nothing happening, sort of like an art film. Too late now. That was definitely the longest interval of inanimation I’ve yet seen. Must have been a predator nearby. If there would have been a Downy on the feeder at the same time I could have entitled it “Still Life with Wodpecker “ in memory of the 1980 novel by Tom Robbins. 
It did rotate its head a little, back and forth, ever so slightly and slowly, just to see if I was still watching.
