FeederWatch Day

Today is the first of the two days each week I monitor bird populations in my backyard. I'm participate in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's FeederWatch program. Each Saturday and Sunday, I record not only what birds come to my feeders, but what is the largest amount of a species that are together at one time.

Today has been a good day - lots of activity and even an unusual sighting (a Cooper's Hawk). There have been chickadees, juncos, house finches, and house sparrows. Of the five kinds of woodpeckers that show up in my yard, four have made appearances today: downy, hairy, red-bellied, and a flicker. I'm hoping #5 will show up - the biggest of them all - the pileated woodpecker.

For the first time in over 20 years, a pileated woodpecker has shown up in the backyard. But that time, it came once and then was gone. Now it shows up about every 3-5 days. We've got a trail camera set up and it is helping us know for sure which days and how often the bird is coming. The suet feeder is definitely what draws him to the yard. (Yes, it is definitely a him: red on the "mustache" on the side of its face.) Pileateds are supposed to not be unusual, just not that common in urban areas. They prefer woods where they can carve large holes into dead trees as they look for insects or create nests. Here, the pileated flies into the mulberry tree, then lands on the suet feeder and pecks away. Big chunks of suet are dislodged as the bird twists around to get just the right angle for snapping out the chunks of fat. Surprisingly, I have seen it on the thistle feeder, too. I didn't expect it to like the tiny thistle seeds, not to mention that it looked like it was very awkward for the bird as it clung to the thin perches and tried to get at the seeds through the slots. Determination.

I couldn't ask for better entertainment on any day of the week.