A Woodpecker Sittin' on a Rail

 

As the young Pileated Woodpeckers learn to feed themselves, their navigation systems are not quite developed.  They flutter around, sometimes landing on a chair or on the shingles and once even on the umbrella.  Most often they fly to the deck rail.  And they sit and try to figure out how to get up to the suet feeder.  They are fun to watch and after some missed attempts and fly-bys, eventually they land on the feeder and enjoy the suet.

 

 

 

Little female seems surprised to have landed on the railing.

 

 

 

 

She looks up at the feeder.  It seems far away.

Today marks a very special day for some of our readers.  Rosh Hashanah signals the beginning of High Holy Days for our Jewish neighbors.  Called the "Jewish New Year," Rosh Hashanah begins this evening at sundown.

A common Rosh Hashanah greeting is shana tovah u'metukah which means, "a good and sweet New Year."  And so to all of you, Jewish or not, I wish you a good and sweet new year.

Three On a Tree

The Pileated Woodpeckers will soon stop feeding their young and the little ones will have to fend for themselves.  Unlike most birds, the Pileated Woodpecker fledglings are almost as large as the adults before they ever leave the nests.  We can tell the difference between parent and child in their eyes.  The adults have a well-defined sclera while the pupil fills the entire eye on the juveniles.  In most instances, the adults have smoother top-knotch feathers while the juveniles appear in need of grooming.

This year, one of our mated pairs of Pileated Woodpeckers had two fledglings.  We have been delighted to see them in the area.

 

 

 

Father (on the left) and his two daughters

 

 

 

One click of the camera is enough to send one of them flying away.

Soon to be followed by the others.

It is really amazing to see the parent feeding two juveniles at once.

Birds Being Birds

 

 

 

We are by no measure experts on birds or bird life.  But we do have lots of opportunities to observe them in nature.  We have three pairs of Pileated Woodpeckers who come to our feeders with their young.  One pair has two fledglings in this brood; the other two pairs had only a single one.  Both parents assist in feeding.

 

This is not scientific, but we have noticed a pattern in their approach to feeding.  Our first indication that the birds have hatched are the parents; filling their beaks with suet and flying off quickly in the same direction each time.  Later, we see the parent and fledgling deep in the woods.  As time progresses, the woodpeckers bring the fledglings closer and closer to the house.

 

At first, the parent seems always to feed the little bird from above, dropping the food into its mouth.  As the little one grows, the parent feeds the bird in a more parallel position.  Finally, the parent feeds from below the bird, forcing the little one to mimic eating on its own.

 

 

Parent on the left, little girl on the right

 

 

 

The parent makes three trips to the suet.

Our most amusing observations are when the parent comes to the suet and flies past the little bird waiting on the branch.  The little bird invariably sits there in disbelief.  When it realizes the parent is not returning to feed it, the bird makes several attempts to get to the feeder.  Often the initial attempts are not successful but very soon the little bird is sitting properly on the suet feeder enjoying a meal.

Watching the birds simply being birds helps us forget about the world's problems for a while.

Wrong Lens, Bad Lighting

For some time now I have been trying to photograph one of our Pileated Woodpeckers feeding a fledgling.  I watch and wait, watch and wait.  More often than not the woodpeckers will slide to the other side of the tree for the feeding itself.

I was caught unawares the other day and grabbed the camera when I noticed a fledgling on the tree.  So here it is; bad photography but a sweet moment in time.  There was a time when I would not have dared put such photographs on my blog.  But regular readers know that I am a reasonably competent photographer.  If you are not a regular reader, click on the label "birds" and you will see some much better photographs.

 

 

 

Parent and child.  The youngster on the left, almost as big as the parent.

 

 

 

Ready to feed

 

 

 

A blur of motion as the little Pileated gets fed.

It's still raining every afternoon here.  Our plants in the front yard look like a jungle.  Bits of mildew appear on the screen porch.  We are praying there are no hurricane remnants to hit us this year.  There just isn't anywhere for the water to go.  The weather is wreaking havoc on the tourist industry, especially hiking,  kayaking and tubing.  The waters are just too high and dangerous and most operators were closed more days in July than they were open.

On a Brighter Note...

 

We're having more sunshine and it is most welcome.  Mostly afternoon and evening thunderstorms with more sun during the day.

 

We are really fortunate this year to have at least three pairs of Pileated Woodpeckers who come to our suet feeder with their fledglings.  We can identify one of the adults by his/her bald head.  Yes, bald head down to the neck.  So bald you cannot tell if it's a male or female.  So we see this weird bird feeding a chick.  Yesterday we noticed a red line at the top of its head so we hope the feathers are growing back.  We have another pair who had two fledglings and sometimes we see all four of them in the trees at once.  The third pair had only one fledgling.

 

We can tell when the birds have hatched by the feeding frenzy with the parents grabbing large amounts of suet and rapidly flying off into the deep woods.  Later, we can see the fledglings down in the woods as the parents feed them.  As time passes, the parents bring the fledglings closer and closer to the deck.  There is a tree quite near the suet and this is the usual feeding place.  The parent will eat and then will fly to the tree to feed the youngster.

 

This little one waits for his lunch.

He preens his gorgeous feathers while he waits.

 

 

 

Camera at the ready, I stood silently watching, waiting to capture the moment of feeding.  Wouldn't you know?  The silly little bird scrambled toward the back of the tree and all I got was the parent's back, leaning down to feed.

 

Curses!  Foiled again.

No matter how often we see these wonderful birds, we always stop and look.  And listen to their jungle-like cries in the woods.

And so life is good.  It's always better in the mountains.  Closer to reality than Raleigh.

Little Female Pileated

Another Pileated Woodpecker has fledged.  This makes the fourth from our two pairs of resident parents.  We saw the adults showing behavior that suggested they were feeding a fledgling deeper in the woods.  Finally, they brought her to a tree near the house.

The other day my husband came inside from sitting on the deck to tell me that I had missed the greatest photograph ever.  He saw the parent feeding the fledgling on a branch and he knows how badly I have wanted to catch the moment with the camera.  "The lighting was just perfect!" he said, "it would have been great."  I snarked that I had a bigillion such missed opportunities on a weekly basis.  You know all of them;  you don't have the camera with you, the camera has the wrong lens on it, etc., etc., etc.

But I knew that sooner or later I would see the feeding and have my camera at the ready.  Not on a branch, not in perfect light, but at least on the right side of the tree.  [NOTE:  For some reason, the photographs look very dark if you have your laptop tilted too far so you might have to adjust it.]

The little girl waits on the tree.

Her mother comes back from the suet and lands alongside.

Finally!  They do not go up under the leaves or crawl behind the tree.

They actually feed right before my eyes.

One more mouthful.

And then they break apart.  Notice that there is little size difference between the adult and the juvenile.

The mother turns her head.  Perhaps there have been too many camera clicks.

Together they fly off deep into the woods.

If you are reading this, I assume you still have Internet access after the Feds shut down the temporary fix for the "Doomsday" virus causing thousands of infected computers to be unable to connect to the Internet.  It is frightening to think of the horrid things evil people can do to so many people in our electronic world, isn't it?

I hope your week is starting well.  Temperatures across the mid-west and eastern US are expected to moderate a bit.  And we hope for the rain to stop in the UK and Russia.  We definitely have some global "weirding" going on.

Behind the Branches

We are blessed to have so many birds in our woods and are often treated to the sight of the parents feeding the fledglings.  Since the birds come at different times each day, catching a photograph is more luck than skill.  The other day I happened to have my camera...with the right lens on it...and I saw two Pileated Woodpeckers fly to the tree.  Finally I would be able to capture the feeding.

This baby Pileated Woodpecker sits and waits for the parent to bring some food.

I've got the camera at the ready.

Want to see this baby fed?

So did I.  But the two birds climbed just high enough in the tree.

So here's nothing but branches and the tail end of a bird.

Perhaps this shot of the Downy Woodpecker feeding its fledgling will suffice.

People who watch birds know that the best bird is always on the other side of the tree.  But just knowing it's there is sometimes enough.

The number of people in harm's way seems to be growing.  Now we add those in peril from the dangerously high temperatures, many without power from the storms.  Our thoughts are with them along with those affected by the western wildfires and the residual floodwaters in Florida.

This Side of the Tree

I have spent a great deal of time trying to capture a photograph of the Pileated Woodpeckers feeding their young.  They always manage to go to the other side of the tree.  Finally I saw them on a foggy morning last week.  Unfortunately, I was inside so the photographs are not the best.  (Perhaps I should clean the glass in the door more often.)

The adult male has been to the suet feeder and flies back to the tree.

 He feeds the large fledgling.

 There is a short break but the adult does not need to go back to the feeder.

He feeds the young one again.

I am glad that we have so many birds to enjoy.  When you are trying to avoid the "breaking" news, bird watching takes on a whole new meaning.

Another Big Baby and It's a Boy

At first glance, I thought it was another female Pileated Woodpecker fledgling.  The baby bird flew to the tree while the adult male went to the suet feeder.  As I watched more closely, I could see the faint red along the cheek stripe.  In addition to that, the red crest extended all the way to the top of the bill.  This baby was a boy.

He sits on the tree, watching Dad get some food.

He preens himself since it is taking so long.

And of course, since I have my camera they move behind the tree for the feeding.

The adult male on the left with Junior on the right.  You might want to click to enlarge.  See how fresh and clean the juvenile is?  And poor Papa looks like he has had a hard summer.

Last week we had the pleasure of seeing the juvenile female make her first attempts at flying to the feeder.  She first flew to the post, then flew and clung to the wooden shingles near the feeder.  Finally she was successful at gettting some food on her own.  Unfortunately we didn't catch a photograph.  Perhaps as this male begins to feed himself we'll be able to get a shot.

Thank goodness we have the birds and dogs to watch.  In this dreadful weather we enjoy the outdoors only when we are indoors.  Yuck!

A Really Big Baby Bird

For more than a week now, we have known that one of our Pileated Woodpecker pairs has a fledgling.  The pattern repeats itself every year.  The parent will come to the suet feeder, grab a beakful of food and fly into the trees.  At first, the parent leaves the baby deeper in the woods.  Eventually, they bring the fledgling to a tree near the suet.  They will feed it there for several days and then the little one is on its own.

We call this the "launching tree."  All of our woodpeckers bring their young ones here in the last step before they have to find their own food.

And here is the baby!  She is a really big baby and actually seems larger than the parent.  Guess it's all that baby fat.

She pokes at the tree while she waits.  Good start.

Mom comes back with food, taking great care to position herself in a way that prohibits my getting a good photograph.  Much to my frustration, they sometimes move completely behind the tree.

You have to take my word for it.  Mom is feeding the big baby.

Compare the sizes.  Mom is on the right.

Once again, the mom is feeding the little one.  Trust me.

Both birds rest after the third feeding.  Baby is hard to see below the mom and moving to the other side of the tree.

Within a few days, the baby will feed herself.  We will watch like anxious parents ourselves as she makes her first attempts to get to the suet feeder.  She will be amazed the first time Mom leaves her on the launching tree and flies right past her without giving her anything to eat.  She will watch and finally decide to try it solo.  We watch anxiously until she finally makes it over to get some food.  The mother must be watching as well, because if the baby doesn't make any attempt to feed herself, then Mom will come back and give her a bite, hoping that the next time will be more successful.

Here's hoping I am on the deck with my camera.

Sometimes We Do Share

We live in the woods. Squirrels live in the woods. We feed the birds. Squirrels like the same food. So it's a constant struggle trying to outwit the squirrels, who by the way, have plenty of nuts and berries around.

We have a variety of birdfeeders offering different kinds of seeds and suet. The squirrels have shown little interest in trying to get at the feeder with cracked sunflower seeds so we have not used a baffle to protect it. At any given time, there are several different types of birds at the stations. We almost always see nuthatches, chickadees, titmice and goldfinches when we look out at this feeder. They seem to have no problem sharing.


In fact, we have had some rather unusual visitors to this particular feeder. Here a female Pileated Woodpecker and a female Eastern Towhee are feeding. A bit strange for the woodpecker to go for the seeds at a feeder clearly not well-designed for woodpeckers. And the towhee is usually a ground feeder. But they shared nonetheless.

I mentioned that squirrels have not been particularly interested in this feeder. Well, that was true until this week. And, wouldn't you know? One of the beady-eyed monsters was determined to try some of this seed.

Well, we can put a stop to that. One of my husband's PVC pipe and duct tape baffles now surrounds the pole. When the squirrel tries to climb, the pipe swivels. Not especially pretty, but quite effective. (This is the second generation homemade baffle, by the way. There's always a method for a man to improve any invention using PVC pipe and duct tape.) Since the birdfeeders hang from the upper deck at the back of the house looks aren't terribly important.

In all our years of feeding birds, this is the only truly squirrel-proof feeder we have found. It has a spring tension that shuts off the food at a given weight. We have had others with springs that shut down with the weight of large birds (doves) and squirrels. But in each of those, the squirrel would eventually learn to hang from his hind leg and scoop the seeds without tripping the spring. The current feeder is longer than the squirrel so he can't do that little trick. Well, unless we have a basketball playing squirrel who towers above all the others. So far we have had only normal-sized rascals. This particular feeder is made by Wild Birds Unlimited and is called the WBU Eliminator. (Oh, if it REALLY eliminated the squirrels I would pay a fortune for it.) But it does eliminate the squirrel feeding.

It is almost blasphemous to hate squirrels in Transylvania County. We have white squirrels here and Brevard promotes them as big tourist draws. (Guess the scenery, waterfalls, and national forests aren't enough.) You name any type of tacky souvenir you can imagine. Yep, we've got that with a white squirrel on it.

We occasionally see them in our forest and I don't like them any better than the gray ones. I just call them the beady-eyed white devils.

The Other Side of the Tree

Thank you for your comments on my last post. The reason for the post was to remind all of us just how tenuous our grip on life can be. I was extraordinarily healthy, had NONE of the predisposing factors for gastric ulcer, and NONE of the warning signs and symptoms before that day. My case was certainly atypical, but it happened nonetheless. Fortunately I have no long-term effects, and it's as if it never happened. I must admit that I did worry a bit that I never saw the "light" and no one encouraged me to come over or go back. But I didn't see goblins either so I suppose if I wasn't at the gate of Heaven, at least I wasn't at the gate of Hell either.

Now, on with the blog:

Our Pileated Woodpeckers started bringing their fledgling near the feeder and I cannot tell you how many hours I spent trying to get a good photograph. It just was not to be. The lighting was terrible and the birds in constant movement.



Here the baby waits for a feeding.

And here is the baby getting fed. And of course, it's like so many other great birds. It's on the other side of the tree.

Each and every feeding that I observed was on the back side of the tree, almost as if the woodpeckers had it planned. So I do apologize that I was not able to give you a good look. I doubt that the Pileateds will have another nesting this year. But there's always next year.

Finally, a Royal Flush

Tuesday, December 22...a day that will stay in our minds for a long, long while. That was the day that Arnold FINALLY delivered on his promise to see us first thing in the morning. That was the day we could finally run water in our drains rather than pouring it our over the deck like great-grandma used to do. After four days of flushing only when necessary, and we really mean NECESSARY, we can use our bathrooms. Have you ever spent four days without a shower? What an event that was for both of us.

The injured player is making phenomenal progress. Our kids are on the way home for Christmas. Simply put...we are happy as a couple of chickadees.

And the fortunes of sunshine give us as much uplift and color as this sweet Pileated Woodpecker seeking a bite to eat.

The snow is melting although there is still plenty lying around. Exhaustion has given way to extreme happiness that we are doing as well as we are. Life indeed is beautiful.

Thank you all for your supportive comments and thoughts. We have so much to be grateful for and we are definitely counting each blessing we have.

Misty Mornings

The sun is sleeping in later and later. Sunrise today is 7:03. And the sun goes to bed much sooner. Tonight's sunset will be at 7:59. It has been a while since the sun set before 8:00.

Morning mist and fog is very common in the mountains during spring and fall and it lingers much longer as the sun rises later and later. A common phrase around here is "I'll be there as soon as the sun burns off the fog a little."

The mist and fog give us new views of our common sights. Here a mother and her twins have breakfast in the grass by the roadside in the early morning mist.

Quite accustomed to people, the deer stand and stare at the camera.

Finally the mother decides to lead her little ones away. The disobedient one ran into the woods while the good little fawn follows Mom's footsteps.

If the later sunrise weren't sign enough, look at the leaves behind the woodpecker. They are all becoming dusky and some of them are beginning to show a little hint of fall color.

Yes, fall is approaching. Already the "experts" are predicting the extent and peak times of fall color. Some say the leaf season will be shorter than usual; some longer. Some predict the color will be duller than usual; others say it will be spectacular. Some say it will be sooner than usual; others later. They all have sound reasons for their predictions. About the only things that we know are true...the leaves will indeed turn and the tourists will flock to the mountains to view them. And we who live here will enjoy them every bit as much as the tourists.