Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Woodpecker at My Feeder! Finally!

I promised an update on the suet feeder I hung from the black walnut tree in my front yard, and today I'm going to follow through with it.

Finally!

I know, I know... it took a while.  I would've posted about it a lot sooner if it wasn't for my camera deciding that it was going to have a mind of its own.  I still haven't forgiven it, by the way!

At first, my suet feeder attracted absolutely no wildlife.  I had begun to think I had done something horribly, terribly wrong.  The day before I was going to give up and take it down in order to place it in a new location, though, I found a flock of crows on one of the branches (Is it 'flock'?  Or maybe gaggle?  Ravenous Pack?).  One of the crows was pecking at the feeder.

This wasn't exactly my image of an ideal situation, considering that what I wanted was a woodpecker, but it was a start.

The next day I saw a squirrel eating from the feeder.  He played with it, bouncing it about, then finally found a feeder position that was comfortable for him.  He ate with gusto.

This was still not what I wanted.  The block of food inside the feeder cage was getting smaller...

Two days later, though, I was greeted with a beautiful sight:  Woodpeckers.  Not a woodpecker, understand, but woodpeckers.  Plural.

I was overjoyed!  A family of woodpeckers had arrived at my suet feeder.  At last!


What you're looking at is a young woodpecker.  There was actually a mother and her two young at my suet feeder.  I apologize for the horribly pixelated image, but my camera is still being rather difficult with me.

I'll have to do an identification post regarding woodpeckers, because I honestly can't tell you if this one is male or female.  Do the heads of the males turn red as they age, or are they born that way?  This is something that I don't know the answer to, something I need to discover.

Beauty, knowledge, and discovery are all around us.  We just need to open our eyes a little wider to be able to see the.

No comments:

Post a Comment