Most of the summer birds made their retreat south before the freezing temperatures this week, but the year-around birds are still hunting for food like this Downy Woodpecker checking out the holes in the tree for sap and insects trapped in the sap.
Looking for Food
Morning revealed another new layer of snow as a pileated woodpecker attacked my suet block. For being the largest woodpecker in the country, the pileated woodpecker is hard to spot and harder to get a photo of one although I often hear their call. I have been seeing one for the last month, but he always hears and flies away when I try to open the door from my kitchen into the garage so I could get to a window without a screen to take a picture. With their body shape and head, I can almost picture them as a prehistoric age type of pterosaur found on the set of Jurassic Park. It was six years ago when I was able to get a couple photos of the big woodpecker.
Pileated Woodpecker
Many of the summer birds have left a while ago, so the year-round birds are more noticeable again, like this downy woodpecker enjoying the autumn day as it searches for food.
Autumn Woodpecker
While not a returning summer bird, the appearance of a Pileated Woodpecker is not real common in my yard but they are rather noisy when they do show up. The Pileated Woodpecker is a very large woodpecker, with a wingspan nearing 30 inches and has a long neck and a triangular crest that sweeps off the back of the head. It reminds me more of a prehistoric bird than a woodpecker. They dig rectangular holes in trees to find ants and yesterday this woodpecker was checking out my raised garden beds made out of fallen trees, but he must not have found any ants as he didn’t stay long.
Pileated Woodpecker
With the sun out yesterday and no new snow, the birds could land on the ground again like these Northern Flickers. Although it can climb up the trunks of trees and hammer on wood like other woodpeckers, the Northern Flicker prefers to find food on the ground. Ants are its main food, and the flicker digs in the dirt to find them. It uses its long barbed tongue to lap up the ants.
Spring is also the time when birds are finding mates and Northern Flicker rivals face off in a display sometimes called a “fencing duel,” while a prospective mate looks on. Two birds face each other, bills pointed upward, and bob their heads in time. It was interesting to watch but I wonder what the female thinks of the males “fencing duel”.
Fencing Duel
