[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Woodpeckers and snow
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: Woodpeckers and snow
- From: lovell@mindspring.com
- Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 18:38:25 +0000
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
My big thrill with the snow (at least 15 inches here on Pleasant
Green Road near the Eno) has been the redheaded Woodpecker losing his
shyness and becoming a regular at the big hamper pole feeder in my
yard. I don't usually have redheadeds but this winter I'd spotted one
in the distant trees and hoped he's be attracted. In the last few
days he's come a couple of times to the feeder, sometimes to the
ground beneath, but today he was constant. He roots around for a
sunflower seed, flies a hundred yards or so to one particular skinny
oak, bangs it open, and returns to the feeder, 12 or 15 trips in a
row. The redbellied, on the other hand, has been a customer for years.
He (and his family) has learned that I feed Pennington's Wild Bird
Delight which has abundant peanut pieces, and he fishes for these,
strewing seed right and left for minutes at a time, to the delight,
I'm sure, of the whitethroats, juncos, towhees, etc. on the ground
below. I am also struck the difference in the reds--the redbellied is
a clear scarlet, the redheaded a deep, ruby, tending toward magenta
and in the sun almost irridescent.
Other bonuses: a foxy, a pine warbler, a brown thrasher, and flocks
of a dozen or so purple finches. Towhee numbers are up to 12--6
pairs.
Barbara Lovell
Orange County