So previously I saw a downy woodpecker at my suet feeder

[conuly]

Today I saw another woodpecker, this one with a red head so I knew it was a male. It did seem a bit larger than my previous visitor, and when I googled it I realized that it had more red on its head. I think it might be him!

He hung around a while, but when something spooked all the birds he flew off and decided to see if there was anything to eat in a neighbor's very tilted maple.

Also, wow, I'm popular. The neighborhood birds must have me under surveillance or something, because I swear the sky darkens within seconds of me going back in the house. (This is only the tiniest bit of hyperbole. They're eating up the birdseed within a few hours, save whatever the mourning doves have ended up kicking onto the ground with their weirdo insistence on sitting on top of all the birdseed at once. Well, at least this makes the cardinal happy.)

I'm not sure any of my neighbors put out feeders. Not the ones I can see by craning my neck out the back window, anyway, and I don't see any in the fronts of any houses either. Maybe I can convince some to start, spread this crowd out a little. It might be healthier for the birds, is all.

Comments

[adafrog]

:)

[kareina]

Keldor's dad feeds the birds, to the tune of multipile 25-kg bags of seed a month, so there are normally huge numbers of birds in his yard. If he ever quits the local bird population is going to plummet.

[conuly]

Well, I'm not at that point yet, thank goodness.

[hudebnik]

Red-bellied woodpeckers are fairly likely in our part of the world. I don't think anybody's ever actually seen the "red belly" on a live specimen, but the speckledy stripes on the back and the "churr" sound are distinctive.