Northward Migration

Lady Flicker, Wikimedia Commons

Yellow-Shafted Flickers stop here for suet in late January and early February, flying from southern Texas and northern Mexico to their summer breeding grounds in Canada. I watch them compete with the lordly Pileated Woodpecker for the same suet cake. The much larger Pileated who lives here year-round flaps his wings and waves them away, but the flickers are clever, and they simply wait beneath the suet cage for pieces that fly down to the leaf carpet while the bigger bird drills and gobbles his share. The Flicker is the only woodpecker who will eat from the ground.

Yellow-Shafted are the easterners, and Red-Shafted are the
westerners. They are in my view the most elegantly clothed of all the migrating birds. Wish they lived here all year round. The goldfinches at the seed feeder are still their winter olive green but now with a mention of yellow. The smaller picture shows a little Downy Woodpecker, in a flutter of striped wings, boldly trying to nip the suet while the male Pileated clings to the suet cage with his big crusty feet, and I decided after trying hard and getting no decent photos that this is the year (after 15 years) to set up a bird camera with remote shutter control to capture not only their individual beauty but their interactions.

From Soffit to Suet

Most people don't believe me--it's the single most unbelieved thing I say--when I tell them that the five species of woodpeckers I feed all know which room of the house I sleep in, and know my bed is right beneath the window, and if I'm not up yet, they drum and drill on the fascia above the window to wake me so I will bring out their suet. Which I usually do first thing each morning.

"But it's true," I tell the unbelievers. "I can show you."

If I turn over and go back to sleep, the birds will drum and drill on the other side of the bedroom, too. If they know I'm elsewhere in the house but they're not sure where, they jackhammer on the tall metal TV antenna, making the entire house resound. It sounds like the clanking of pipes in old steam-heated buildings, except rapid. It throbs like a headache. Because the antenna, unlike the roof, houses no termites or bugs and even the boldest woodpecker can't drill holes in it, I've asked a friend, "Why do they do that?"

"Because it's fun," she said.

It's also effective. Sometimes the birds are my alarm clock. Often in winter they guilt me out of bed: I'm thinking, "They're hungry, I've got to feed them." Sometimes I'll stay in bed an extra half-hour just to let fat lazy devious birds know who is the boss around here. Sometimes I'll slide open the window and yell, "I am not your slave."

Woodpecker Family Breakfast

This morning as I sat quietly on the porch with tea and phone, having put out the day's suet and seeds and water, a male Pileated Woodpecker swooped in screeching, and landed on the suet cage to eat his fill. But this time was different; his whole family joined him and I caught it on video, activity starting really to heat up around 0:51 -- and all four communicating not through the Pileated's usual high-decibel jungle screeches, but the throaty burble they use for intimate communication. Few ever get to hear this sound.
The pair's two daughters spar on the tree to the right. Some years the pair who frequent my place winter and summer (but not spring and fall!) have one child, other times they have two. Previous to filming this, I watched the girls hassle Dad to feed them -- they do it with regurgitation, a great thing I've watched -- but now that they are old enough to get their own food, Dad gave them a sharp peck and refused. So they fuss and act up as children do. On the left you'll see Mom as she fends off an intruder, with Dad heroically coming to the rescue. When Pileateds feel threatened they open their wings, looking huge (they're crow-sized) and exposing startling white-bright wing linings. All Pileateds have the bright-red caps. Wish the video was as good as National Geographic, thanks for your patience; but it gives you a peek into Woodpecker World and birdish family life.

Let It Snow

The first snow came, only an inch or two but enough so that I woke to the screaming demands of the local Pileated Woodpecker that I get up, shuffle out through the snow and replenish the suet because all of a sudden he can't find his own food. And for years I've tried to be a good backyard bird-feeder and give my year-round cardinals a balanced diet of millet mixed with sunflower seeds, but they always ate only the sunflower seeds. So, just a few days ago I gave in and now serve only sunflower seeds. My reward is more cardinals, males and females, in constant motion from tree branch to feeder to wire, like a mobile.

I 'm secretly delighted to be hosting and serving birds -- mine are the world's finest.

Hungry Pileated Woodpecker

This male Pileated was hungry enough, in the seven inches of yesterday's snow, to allow me to stand in the open porch door and take his picture while he breakfasted on suet. His mate was nearby, but it wasn't her turn yet to leap onto the suet cage, clutch it with her long black toes, and eat. Not only that, but when they fly back to the tree trunk they wipe their beaks on the bark like it's a napkin.

This Year's Birthday Gift

Each year on my birthday I am sent a fabulous bird, so I get up early and wait for it. I know northern migration has begun because the Yellow-Shafted Flicker appeared last week, which was earlier than usual, but I haven't yet seen my Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, who sometimes is my birthday gift. Instead appeared the Master of the Woods, the Pileated Woodpecker, screaming and enjoying suet (pictured) and pecking on the old TV aerial because it makes an exciting noise like mallets on metal (that reverberates throughout my house). Some mornings if the suet isn't there when he wants it, he's my alarm clock. Wow, do I ever have serious problems! Lucky me!

Hum Along

Always comes a day when my hummingbirds leave for the season. The last one left my feeder Sept. 26, about the usual date. And always I grieve because when they fly away they take my heart with them. You love hummingbirds too; you know what I mean.

But I hadn't time to turn around before the big Pileated Woodpecker started his yelling, swooping, and pecking at the suet, leaving all the other birds to look on awed and envious. My Pileateds usually vacation for a month in late summer after the couple is finished rearing its offspring. They don't come for suet for that month, but they do "call" when they see me emerging from my own woodpecker hole, and I greet them loudly in turn. When the weather changes they return for suet and eat it all up like a hundred yards o' chitlin's.

I sing as I put out seed and suet and fresh water in the mornings, to the tune of "Good Night, Ladies":

"Good morning, birdies.
Good morning, bunbuns.
Good morning, ______________  (turtles, turkeys, possums, deer, fawns, coons, foxes, lizards, butterflies, armadillos, moles, frogs, peepers, beavers, muskrats, spiders)
We love you, every one."

When Birds Aren't Pretty

Squawk! Scuffle! This morning I saw my homie the Downy Woodpecker and the visiting migrant, the Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, sparring and threatening each other on the suet cage. Not one minute later, when the Yellow-Belly was pecking at the suet, came a Starling, his shawl still peppered with white stars; he and his big buddies all wanted some suet. Flapping his wings scared off the smaller Yellow-Belly. Meanwhile, Hairy and Downy woodpeckers clung to trees at a safe distance, and songbirds, such as Blue Jays and cardinals, and a row of Starlings, waited, clinging to branches...a perfect lunch counter for the Red-Tailed hawk perched on a cedar branch high above the feeder just waitin' to snatch somebody (he likes pigeons).

Then came the biggest woodpecker of all, the spectacular crow-sized Pileated, king of the birds around here, and everybody let him have as much suet as he liked. As soon as he was gone, the fighting and sparring began again, and I wondered (exasperated, like a parent) if I shouldn't just take the suet indoors until they learned to stop fighting and share.

P.S. I replaced suet for a few days with a chunk of shortening, an ingredient in many "make your own suet" recipes. Birds no matter how cold or greedy did not like it at all.

It's Got a Yellow Belly

Northern migration has begun, and that means spring is coming! First Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker of the year arrived at the suet yesterday morning, and I wanted to prove it to you, but I didn't get a decent picture until today.

Sapsuckers mostly live and breed in Canada, but they winter in the South, and just as soon as the days begin lengthening they pass through here goin' on up to home. They belong to the woodpecker family. Sap is not available just now so they'll take suet and I'm happy to serve it, I get so much pleasure from watching birds and learning their ways. I expect elegantly-dressed Mr. and Mrs. Flicker to pass through here any day now.

Woodpecker Apartments

Tried the Flint Quarry Trail hoping to see a flint quarry. But instead I saw Pileated Woodpecker luxury highrise apartments. Woodpeckers pair up, and you'll notice they all have the same address, but each pecks out his or her own place, giving each other space. This must be what keeps them cheerfully whooping and yammering, biggest and noisiest birds in the forest, always raising more kids just like themselves, and my favorite birds of all time.

Nobody was home.

Friend of mine once said the best name for a human apartment building would be "The Balzac Apartments." I never laughed so hard.

Le Pic-Bois

Okay, I admit it, I wanted to escape the Missouri steam heat for a while, so I went to Quebec City, and there in the old town (Vieux Quebec; you must visit) what did I see on a shopfront but a three-foot wooden replica of my friend the Pileated Woodpecker delightfully translated into the delightful "Pic-Bois." That just means woodpecker, but it sounds so much cooler! In fact, just about everything was cooler in French. I admit too that I spoke bad French if only to say "Je ne comprendes pas" and "Je ne parle pas francais", and "Bon jour" and "Merci," and politely everyone I said it to switched to English except one seventyish man on a bicycle who saw me waiting for a bus in the rain, and stopped and said something, and I said "Je ne parle pas" and he didn't parle Anglais either, so he explained to me on his fingers that the bus would arrive in four minutes.

This huge wooden sculpture is strikingly accurate in every detail except the real Pic de Bois has much bigger and crustier black feet.

How wonderful that someone else a thousand miles away loves my close friends as much as I do!

Father Feeds Son!

Caught in action so quick that it blurred even during the half a second of one shutter snap: The adult Pileated Woodpecker (right), having lunched on some suet -- always available here -- feeds his adolescent son by regurgitating. The parents come for suet each year during nesting, vanishing until around August 1 when they bring and feed the kids and then patiently wait on the tree while Junior and/or Missy practice flying at and pecking at the suet basket. Mastery takes about a month of practice. If the young one continues pestering the grownup for food by getting close and opening its beak, Mom or Dad will give them a sharp peck, meaning "Get your own!" By September the kids have flown and the parents go "on vacation" until frost, not coming by, even for suet, but calling when they see me come out of the house. They resume suet-eating around Thanksgiving.

The female Pileateds have red caps; males have red "mustaches" as well. The younger ones can be distinguished because the head feathers are whiter; the older the bird, the more yellow. The stripes and mustaches on different Pileateds are all unique. Most often Dad feeds a son and Mom feeds a daughter, but I have seen it vice versa also.

Two for One

Taken yesterday. These pileated woodpeckers are both females, probably mother and daughter. They played peekaboo on this oak tree for an hour.

Merry Messenger

This pileated woodpecker was swooping around the house at 8 a.m., joyfully screaming, "Wake up everyone for a mile radius! It's Christmas!" I ran outside to hang the suet for her. After two solid days of rain, the earth has today a very light dusting of snow. A blessed Yule to you!

Her Ladyship

Lady Pileated Woodpecker now takes her daily brunch at my suet cake. An honor to have her, after several months without seeing her. She winters here but did not dine here. Yet she did "call" me from the treetops every day. Lord Woodpecker must be nearby. Photographed this through the screen because it'll be a while before I can slowly regain the confidence of Her Ladyship, get closer, and photograph her without barriers between us. She has an enviable cap and great feet.

His Lordship

"A spectacular crow-sized woodpecker," says the Peterson Guide. It's rare to see pileated woodpeckers on suet, but pairs live here year-round and come to dine and entertain me from December to May, and again from July (when they train their sons and daughters to eat suet) to September (when the parents take a much-deserved vacation). They live for up to 12 years, and dwell in "singles" apartments in hollowed-out trees. The male has a red "mustache." They all scream for joy. The well-known cartoon woodpecker was modeled on a pileated woodpecker. Photo taken today!