Do you say ‘nut hatch’ as in a little door in the side of a filbert, or ‘nut thatch’ as in a roof made of filbert plant fibers?
My friend wants to know because there’s a song out there that’s been driving him batshit for years. Even a regional variation would be welcome.
I have always said “nut hatch” and have never heard it pronounced any other way.
I can always identify a nuthatch by the way it will walk down a tree headfirst. It is the only bird in my neck of the woods that does this.
Nut hatch
Nut-hatch
It basically means “nut hacker.”
I’ve never heard of it being pronounced differently.
Nut hatch
At least, I’m pretty sure. I went to double check in my secondhand copy of “Standard Book of British Birds” and found that the page on the nuthatch had been torn out.
NO gannets, NO robins, NO nuthatches?
Eyes of the World(studio version). Here and in every live version I’ve heard, it’s a clear ‘nut thatch’. Always bothered me with the heat of a thousand lighters held in the air (though now it would be smartphones). But I always thought it might be one of the those ‘nuclear’ things, where there’s a regional pronunciation (not that two or three hours after a post is dispositive).
It stands out because even if you’re not keen on Garcia/Hunter per se, they’re lyrical formations are pretty tight, and when they take license it’s with good cause. This just stands out as if they were randomly flipping through a dictionary and came across a neat name or something. Doing that would be absurd!
Maybe they were on acid.
There are several bird names that birders do not always agree on, but Nuthatch is not one of them. nut-hatch.
Merganser, pileated, egret, jacana, jaeger, kestrel, parula and plover are less unanimous. Birders are too non-confrontational to correct each other in the field about such things, so multiple pronunciations zing around in birding conversation without demur. Nobody even pretends that there is a “correct” pronunciation to scientific nomenclarure, like Podiceps grisegena.
Actually, now having listened, I am not hearing any th sound there. There is a bit of a pause there as if he were carefully pronouncing it as two distinct words, which it isn’t, really, but I am not hearing a fricative. (The sound seems a bit muddy, though.)
Maybe you are on acid. 
‘Noo-thaitch’.
Not really.
Nu-Thatch!™ The breakthrough baldness treatment from Hair Club for Men.
mer-GAN-ser
PIL-ee-ate-ed
EE-gret
ja-CAH-nah
JAY-ger
KES-trel
pa-ROO-lah
PLUH-ver
How did I do? Can you see my Australian by way of California bias?
It’s YAY-ger. Pileated and parula are split among birders as to their pronunciations. I think it depends upon where you live. Another one is osprey. I’ve pronounced it os-pray, but here in the south os-pree is preferred.
Nut hatch.
That’s the anglicized version, but the original Portuguese is more like zha-sa-NA, which is given as an alternate by Merriam Webster.
As barbitu8 says, it’s YAY-ger, being of German origin.
It doesn’t sound like nut thatch to me. There’s just an odd pause between the two syllables.
If you’re going to use Grateful Dead performances as an indication of pronunciation you’re likely to come to some unconventional conclusions…
“Throatwarbler Mangrove.”
Come on, someone had to.
I’ve always pronounced it nut-hatch and have never heard anyone say it any other way. And this is from someone who was roundly mocked for pronouncing grebe “greb” rather than “greebe”.
If I took a poll among them, I believe the most frequently-used pronunciation among my American birding acquaintances would be:
mer-GAN-zer
PILL-le-ayted
e-GRETT
jah-sa-NAH
YAY-ger
KESS-trel
PARR-yu-la
PLOH-ver
I think Jacana is the only one that is actually discussed, in that it is a genus that rarely occurs as an accidental in North America, is rarely talked about, and the Portuguese phonetics are considered binding by worldwide birders. So, eventually, an American birder will become educated about the correct form.
Dictionarily, English words no longer have “correct” pronunciations, because it tends to insensitively degrade the self-esteem of people in marginalized demographics who pronounce things wrong, but political correctness trumps lexical correctness, and mis-speakers must be patted on the head anyway.
“Considered binding” by whom?
Comb-crested jacanas are found in northern Australia, and I have never heard the name pronounced in the Portuguese manner there.