Woodpecker

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Aug 16, 2019
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I heard a unique bird singing one day, and this guy flew up to my feeders area, so I went in the house and let him help himself.
I love to feed the birds. This is the first time I've seen a woodpecker at a bird feeder eating sunflower seed over many decades. My mom was an avid bird fan and she got many WPs, but for suet, not seed.

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He prefers suet. I put out suet early this winter, thinking I could feed the nice birds without the starlings hogging it all in 2 hours. The starlings are still here, evidently they didn't migrate away from here. So I did some research and covered the upper part of the suet feeder with plastic, only exposing the bottom part, and it seems to work out good. I have 2 different types of WPs that still visit that feeder and the starlings don't seem to want to mess with it like that, or they don't see it when they fly over it.

I took these shots with my Nikon D3100 dSLR with a Nikkor 55-200mm lens.
Is that a gorgeous bird? I appreciate them paying me a visit from time to time.

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Nice photos of your red-bellied woodpecker.
And that's a good tip for the suet feeder. I leave the cake in the plastic tray to keep starlings from eating both sides at once, but that looks like it would work even better.
 
They are pretty birds. At my previous house they seemed to like to peck at the metal flashing around the chimney. Made the oddest staccatto sound all around the house.
I'm sure. Their beaks are powerful, like little jackhammers or something.
 
So that's what a woodpecker looks like. In my area, they're always in the tallest of trees making noise.
I've never seen one either but I like hearing them rat-a-tat-tatting in the trees behind my house. Makes me smile. They're not the smartest birds because they rat-a-tat-tat on my metal chimney cap and it echoes throughout the house. LOL.
 
Woodpeckers are pretty neat Birds. They can dig a bug out that is below the bark of a tree. But usually what they are doing when they are pounding away at the trees is making a bunch of holes to build a farm for the bugs to live in. Then they come back later to each of the trees that they've built their farms in and harvest the bugs that have made a home of the holes that they made for the bugs.
 

Another neat thing to see about birds is that at night time owls will attack crows that are sleeping in trees and eat the crows. In the daytime the owl does not usually fly because the sun is too bright for its eyes that are designed for night time hunting. But if the crows find an owl nesting in a tree during the day they will attack it as a group and try to kill the owl even though usually they cannot managed to kill it. They will chase it out of their area if they can and what you will see is the owl flying in the daytime with the crows taking turns dive bombing it and hitting it with their beaks. The owl has a tough time seeing in bright daylight but if it ever does grab one of the crows it's all over with for the crow. It's really interesting when you see an owl trying to fly away from a group of crows whike it is being dive bombed by the crows in the daytime. The small crows are much better at making quick maneuvers than a big owl. And usually the owl just is trying to maintain altitude and not doing a lot of manipulating of its flight. The crows or like small Fighters able to change direction very quickly and the big Crow is like a giant bomber that can't change course very fast at all.
 
I heard a unique bird singing one day, and this guy flew up to my feeders area, so I went in the house and let him help himself.
I love to feed the birds. This is the first time I've seen a woodpecker at a bird feeder eating sunflower seed over many decades. My mom was an avid bird fan and she got many WPs, but for suet, not seed.

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We have a red bellied woodpecker that’ll fly over and take sunflower seeds out of our bird feeders. When the hordes of Starlings and Grackles come through and bully the other birds away, the woodpecker doesn’t care, it’s going to the bird feeder no matter how many birds are on it! They all make way when the woodpecker comes up to it!
It’ll hang upside down on the feeder, grab a sunflower seed, and then jump across to the maple tree, and then back again.
I need to get one of those suet blocks to put out for it.
 
Shot a woodpecker recently cause it was pecking at my powerline pole on my small farm. It didn't look like that but idve still shot it just the same. If it was on the street then I'd give a darn since I don't have to pay for it. But because it's on my property I had to pay for it and it put a pretty good hole in that sucker. Honestly wish I would've paid extra to run it underground instead. It's always been an eyesore and that pole pecker would still be pecking today. The cat got a treat instead.
 
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That's were the cartoon character "Woody Woodpecker" came to life. The creator was in a vacation inside a hotel and got annoyed by the sounds the bird created and the rest is history.
 

Another neat thing to see about birds is that at night time owls will attack crows that are sleeping in trees and eat the crows. In the daytime the owl does not usually fly because the sun is too bright for its eyes that are designed for night time hunting. But if the crows find an owl nesting in a tree during the day they will attack it as a group and try to kill the owl even though usually they cannot managed to kill it. They will chase it out of their area if they can and what you will see is the owl flying in the daytime with the crows taking turns dive bombing it and hitting it with their beaks. The owl has a tough time seeing in bright daylight but if it ever does grab one of the crows it's all over with for the crow. It's really interesting when you see an owl trying to fly away from a group of crows whike it is being dive bombed by the crows in the daytime. The small crows are much better at making quick maneuvers than a big owl. And usually the owl just is trying to maintain altitude and not doing a lot of manipulating of its flight. The crows or like small Fighters able to change direction very quickly and the big Crow is like a giant bomber that can't change course very fast at all.

I've seen birds chase each other and try to attack other birds.
 
Shot a woodpecker recently cause it was pecking at my powerline pole on my small farm. It didn't look like that but idve still shot it just the same. If it was on the street then I'd give a darn since I don't have to pay for it. But because it's on my property I had to pay for it and it put a pretty good hole in that sucker. Honestly wish I would've paid extra to run it underground instead. It's always been an eyesore and that pole pecker would still be pecking today. The cat got a treat instead.

You let your cat eat a dead bird that had a lead bullet in it, or bird shot in it?
 
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