Nuthatchling

I was yanking out St. John's Wort along our woods path, and I saw a little flutter.  There was an itty bitty bird, hopping along in the duff.Because it allowed me to, I reached out and picked it up.  I thought at first it was a chickadee, but the way it grabbed on my hand indicated a woodpecker.Then I noticed the tip of its beak was all gummed up, and I picked and pulled at that.  I think it was sap, full of dirt. Very sticky.  As soon as I got most of it off, and it could open its beak, it squawked!I carried it home for a photo shoot and to show HW.  It seemed pretty content.  Chicks tend to like being held, after initially being disgruntled.  Oh, I'm warm.  This isn't so bad.Then I took it back to where I'd found it.  I tried to put it on a tree, quite sure it was a creeper, but it fluttered back down to the ground.  I retired and watched.It started cheeping.  Peep, peep peep.  Peep, peep peep.Sure enough, a nuthatch appeared in the overstory.  Of course, nuthatch!  It flew off in the wrong direction, but I was quite sure it had been looking for the source of peeping first, so it was probably off for a grub to return with.Later on, the baby was gone so I'm sure it was fine.  Possibly its beak was shut with the sap, though, so that it couldn't make noise.  I like to think I helped it.It's a fallacy that parent birds reject chicks if you touch them.  The best thing to do for a fallen chick is to replace it in the nest or the branches of a tree and wait for the parents to return.