Posts Tagged ‘Woodpecker’

My World # 16

February 2, 2009
A woodpecker buffet in the Glade. January 31, 2009.

A woodpecker buffet in the Glade. January 31, 2009.

I think there may be woodpeckers in my world — or at least very close to my world.

I took the above picture Saturday (the picture can be enlarged by clicking on it).  I was carrying wood from the woodpile to the garage when I noticed this tree on the property line between our house and the empty lot next door.  I just had to get a picture.  I apologize for the perspective, but I wanted to shoot at such an angle that you could see the hole that went all the way through the tree.

As you can see there has been quite a bit of damage done to this old tree.  I know we have quite a few different types of woodpeckers around the house — red-bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, northern flickers, red-headed woodpeckers and HUGE pileated woodpeckers.

We live in a wood frame house.  This is as close to my world as I want those woodpeckers to get!

To see more of our wonderful world, or to join in the fun and post your own pictures of your world, click HERE.

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A Visitor to Our Feeder

October 8, 2008
A red-bellied woodpecker enjoying our feeder. October 10, 2008.

A red-bellied woodpecker enjoying our feeder. October 10, 2008.

Since Betsy is down in Georgia with her childhood girlfriends, I have been given the responsibility of taking care of her birds.  My main responsibility is to put out the feeders each morning, bring them in each evening (we have too many critters to keep the open feeders out at night), and to keep the bird bath clean.

I’ll admit that none of those jobs is particularly onerous, but if the feeders aren’t out at first light, the birds get very impatient and very loud.  They make a most effective and annoying alarm clock.

But rewards often come along with increased responsibility.  Perhaps because I am responsible for the feeders this week I have been keeping a closer eye on them.  Yesterday morning I spotted the red-bellied woodpecker shown above in the feeder.  I spotted him as he was shooing away a cardinal — evidently the woodpecker didn’t want to share.  And evidently this woodpecker has a reputation because the cardinal kept it’s distance until the woodpecker left.

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Need Any Holes Dug?

October 1, 2008
A pileated woodpecker hard at work in our yard.

A pileated woodpecker hard at work in our yard.

Betsy and I were working in the kitchen yesterday when we saw the pileated woodpecker shown above through the kitchen window.  We have lots of woodpeckers around the house, but this is one of the largest we’ve seen so close to the house.

This woodpecker is a pileated woodpecker, which is about the same size as a crow.  He’s working on a stump which has been cut down to ground level.  Betsy tells me that pileated woodpeckers go through rotting wood looking for insects.

If you look closely you can see that this pileated woodpecker can really dig into wood!  He’s already got a pretty good hole in the top of the stump and the wood chips and the dirt were really flying!  It was something to behold.

I wonder if I could hire him to dig holes for our roses?

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I used to like Woody Woodpecker

August 2, 2008


I used to like Woody Woodpecker.  I remember Woody Woodpecker cartoons when I was growing up and I thoroughly enjoyed them.  No matter what the odds, Woody always came out on top.

Then we moved to the Glade and I became acquainted with Pileated woodpeckers.  Pileated Woodpeckers are the largest woodpecker in most of North America.  Much of the reference material I read said that Pileated Woodpeckers are nearly as large as crows.  I think they grow even larger here in the Glade!

For the first few months we owned our house we were only able to come up here on the weekends.  We tried to get up here every weekend, but that wasn’t always possible.  One weekend we noticed that our wood house had some extra holes in it.  The woodpeckers had struck.

Pileated Woodpecker pairs stay together on their territory all year round.  They also tend to revisit their ‘drilling sites’.  So our problem was to find a way to discourage the woodpeckers from pecking on our house.

We did some internet research and found it was said that mirrors or bright strips of metal would keep the birds away.  There were definitely some disadvantages (such as the Homeowner’s Association) with either of those ideas.

We finally hit upon wind chimes as our anti-woodpecker weapon.  We now have several wind chimes around the house and they seem to be doing the job.  But yesterday I saw the character in the picture above at a big tree behind our house.  I’m going to keep my eye on him to make sure he doesn’t get any closer!

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