Pileated Update

For quite some time now, we have anxiously watched and waited for our female juvenile Pileated Woodpecker (whom we call Hannah) to fly to the suet feeder. It looked promising for a while, with Hannah flying to the deck rail and sitting on the post, looking up at the suet. But she never took off toward the feeder.

Now, it seems apparent that she does not plan to eat our suet as her parents do. She regularly flies to the tree with her mother, but she makes no attempt to go for the suet. The mother is no longer feeding her, and Hannah sometimes remains on the tree long after her mother has flown into the woods.



She often clings to the tree and preens herself.

[The "yellow" in this and the next picture came from a flower on our deck. I had to shoot the flower to get the picture of Hannah. Sorry I don't have a sophisticated photo editing program.]


And sometimes she takes a look at the feeder as if she may be interested. But she no longer flies to the railing, and we have not seen her fly to the suet.

Soon we may not be able to note the difference between Hannah and her mother. She is fully as large as her mother now, and her eyes and topknotch are the only things we can use to differentiate between them. She obviously does not need our suet (neither do her parents, for that matter), but I really wish she would have a snack there now and then. At least, I hope she will continue to rest on our tree. We do so enjoy watching them.