Our Wonderful Woodpeckers

I've been hoping to writing this post for about as long as I've been writing this blog.  My dream was to get a good photograph of a Pileated Woodpecker, and then write about all of our woodpeckers.  This seemed to be a fairly ambitious (and most-likely unattainable) goal, because my sightings of these shy birds are usually fleeting.  I'd never taken any photos of this bird, let alone a good one!  Until Friday...

Female Pileated Woodpecker

This female Pileated Woodpecker swooped in and spent about 5 minutes eating the winter berries by our bird table.  I stuck the stems with berries there a month or so ago, thinking they might brighten up some of my bird photos, and perhaps some birds would eat them.   Maybe Cedar Waxwings if I was lucky.  Well... I was really thrilled and blessed to see the largest woodpecker in North America eat them!

There are a total of about 215 species of woodpeckers in the world.  They live just about everywhere there are trees (and some live in deserts where they make nest holes in saguaro cactus).   There are 6 kinds we normally see here.  As I said, the Pileated is the largest in North America (unless an Ivory-billed Woodpecker is surviving somewhere, which is very unlikely). 

Our smallest and also most common woodpeckers are Downy Woodpeckers at 6 to 7" long.  They are one of the friendliest birds at our feeders, seemingly having little fear of me when I go out to fill the feeders.  Males and females are easy to tell apart, as the males have red on the back of their heads and the females don't.

Female Downy Woodpecker

Looking almost exactly like a Downy Woodpecker except for their size, next are Hairy Woodpeckers (about 8 - 10" long).

Male Hairy Woodpecker

Their bills are heavier and longer in proportion to their head size, too.  It can take a little practice, but after you've seen both kinds for awhile, it's pretty easy to tell them apart.  In the previous 2 photos, you can compare their sizes with the suet cage.

Speaking of bills, one of the interesting things about woodpeckers are the bristle-like feathers which protect their nostrils from all the flying sawdust when they are pecking at dead trees.  (They aren't hairs... since birds don't have hair, they have feathers.  Don't ask me why "Hairy"s are called that!)

Male Downy - notice nasal bristles

Both Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers live here all year.  So does the next one, the Red-bellied.  They are very similar in size to Hairy Woodpeckers (about 8 - 10").

Male Red-bellied Woodpecker

They used to be more of a southern bird, but have gradually made their way northward to live.  I'm so glad they did!  They are one of my favorite birds and have been featured in several other posts, most notably when they won the "Best-Dressed Bird Award".  Click here to read about that.

The one above is a male, with his full head of red.  The females have red on the nape only.

Female Red-bellied Woodpecker

And young Red-bellied Woodpeckers don't have any red to speak of (but they sure are cute)!

Many people call them Red-headed Woodpeckers, but that's a completely different bird.  Red-headed Woodpeckers' entire heads are red and their backs are solid black with white wing patches.  So, why is a red-bellied called what it is?  Here's why...

Although it is hard to see, and not all of them have the tinge of red on their bellies, their name does apply.

Those 3 types all live here year-round.  The next two are migrants and you can expect to see them in northeastern PA only in the warmer months.  About the time the tree sap starts to run, you can look for a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.  At 8 - 9" long they are our next-to-smallest woodpeckers.

Male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.  Females don't have the red under their bills.

They visit trees and peck rows of holes, then come back later to drink the sap.  All woodpeckers have special tongues (quite long and with barbs on them to help them pull insects out of wood) but sapsuckers have shorter tongues coated with fine 'hairs' to help them lap up the liquid.  Here's one drinking from a tiny hole near the base of a sugar maple tree.   It's really well camouflaged there, isn't it?

Other creatures benefit from their work, too, like the Ruby-throated Hummingbird that had a drink at our crab apple tree. Both species not only drink the sap, they eat the insects that are attracted to it.

Trees seem to be able to withstand the holes just fine, as several of the trees in our yard have been used by the sapsuckers for many years.

Sapsuckers and hummers are not the only ones who like sweets.  Downy Woodpeckers are commonly seen drinking from hummingbird feeders.

Male Downy

The next woodpecker is not called a 'woodpecker' but it's in the family just the same.  It's a Northern Flicker.

Flickers (10 to 14" long) live across the whole United States but there are some interesting variations in them.  Our eastern ones are Yellow-shafted (notice this female's tail).  The underneath of their wings and tails are yellow, whereas the western ones are reddish.  You can see a Red-shafted Flicker here in my post about Colorado birds.

Flickers are very commonly seen on the ground, because they love to eat ants.

By the way, both my photos of Flickers are of females, even though they have red on the backs of their heads.  Male Flickers have the same red spot, but also have a black mustache on the sides of their faces (red in the case of the western birds).

Now, we're back to the amazing Pileated Woodpecker.  They measure in at 16 - 19" long!  

I literally gasped out loud when I looked out my kitchen window and saw this one.

She didn't waste any time eating those berries... it was pop, pop, pop...

She'd grab one after another and each time quickly throw her head back and swallow.

She ate until all the good berries were gone, then flew off into our hemlock tree and I haven't seen her again.  She's a memory I don't think I'll ever forget!

In this photo you can see how strong her bill and head are.  Woodpeckers have special physical characteristics that allow them to land hard blows on wood and not get hurt (or get a headache)!

Though I rarely see a Pileated (and then usually quick glimpses) I know they spend time in our woods.  That's because of the holes they leave behind.  Look at the size of this hole, with a matchbox for scale.

That's an old hole, but there are fresh new ones in the same and nearby trees.

The holes are often described as rectangular-shaped.  I'd say it would be hard to mistake them even if they didn't have the distinctive shape, because of their large size.

That's quite a pile of sawdust, too.

People may think that Woodpeckers damage trees, but since the trees are already dead, that's not true.  Although, I'm not too happy when they decide to peck on the wood siding on our house.  However, I love our Woodpeckers so much, I forgive them!  

Hairy parent (on right) feeding youngster

Bird Number 78 and other Bird News

Spurred on by my brother, a sort-of-retired farmer and much better birder than me, we started keeping a bird “yard list” in 2008.  A "yard list" for us isn’t just our yard, it’s the property we live on - which includes our actual yard (duh!), a beaver swamp, old farm pasture and hayfields as well as woods. Starting on January 1st, we write down the first sighting of each kind of bird we see on the property.  Or, in some cases... that we hear (like the Great-horned Owl, number 19 this year and Barred Owl, number 54).  As long as we can identify it for certain, it goes on the list.  We simply jot each species down in a small spiral notebook, with the date and location.  

Which brings us to my title... bird number 78, which was..... a Great Egret!  (making its first appearance since we started keeping our lists).  This is not the first time we’ve seen one here though, as I marked in my “Sibley Guide to Birds” that we saw one in the swamp on April 19th, 2007.  So, all in all, pretty uncommon for us.  And I missed it, because I wasn't home!  My husband was mowing the lawn (which is also pretty uncommon since I usually do the mowing) and happened to notice it.  He said such a large, white bird really stood out in the swamp.  So he ran to get the binoculars and camera.  These are the photos he took:

Great Egrets have black legs and yellow bills.

Sorry about the electric line cutting thru the photo!

I was sorry to have missed it, but glad to know it stopped by for a little while. 

I enjoy seeing each bird that makes our list, from the regulars at the bird feeders to those we only see occasionally.  Bald Eagles have been making the list the last few years.  I can still remember how excited I was when I saw the first one in the swamp in 2010.  Sightings of them have become more frequent, and this year I actually saw 3 (flying together) at one time. 

Bald Eagle sitting above the heron nest, February 10, 2013

And in other bird news, it’s been a pretty exciting day today.  The activity at the grape jelly feeder is picking up.  Besides the Orioles and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, which are constantly lined up waiting their turn (and sometimes fighting over whose turn it is!), today I saw a Blue Jay eat from it, too.  I didn’t manage to get a photo while it was on the feeder but this is from right afterward. 

You can also see a male Baltimore Oriole and Rose-breasted Grosbeak waiting in the wings.

Then later this afternoon, I saw a male Downy Woodpecker having a meal at the Hummingbird feeder.  He looked like he was quite enjoying it!

Drinking thru the bee guard is a little hard!

You can see how the Downy uses his specially designed feet to cling onto the bee guard.

After that, I saw a heron catch a rather large fish and eat it! That's something I certainly don't see everyday, even though I watch the herons in our swamp often.  

Besides the heron with its prize fish, can you see the Painted Turtle in this photo?

It's fun to keep a list of the birds we see.... and it helps me learn to identify more of them.