Saturday Afternoon Drama

I was sitting at the dining room table this afternoon working on a lace patterned knitting project that requires lots of natural light.  With 4 inches of new snow last nite, it's been a busy day at the birdfeeders right outside my window.  Without any advance warning from the bluejays, a Cooper's hawk flew in to try and catch some dinner.  It landed in the big oak tree right near all the birdfeeders.   Woodpeckers had no warning and had to "freeze" wherever they were until Cooper's finally flew away hungry again.....

This is a first year Cooper's Hawk -- you can tell that by its yellow eyes.  (Adults have dark rusty-red colored eyes).  It's cold out there, so the Coop kept one foot tucked up into its tummy feathers for warmth.

Poor little Downy Woodpecker didn't even have time to fly away and was just barely able to duck down behind the deck railing and hang on by two toes, hoping desperately that the hawk wouldn't be able to spot her.

Here's where the Cooper's hawk was perched in the tree in perspective to the Downy woodpecker on the deck railing.  Distance is approx. 10 yds.  The majority of my birdseed and suet feeders are concentrated in the area outside my dining room windows (for best photo ops!) and there are at least a dozen feeders on the deck and hanging in trees all around this big tree where the Cooper's hawk is perched.

I believe there are a nesting pair of Cooper's Hawks in our neighborhood.  I feel privileged to be able to see these birds up close.  The ratio of Coop's to songbirds is probably 1:200 in my backyard, so if they need to hunt here, that's fine by me.  I see the hawks fly into the backyard several times a day (if I'm home to watch them), but I believe the majority of times they fly away without ever catching anything. 

Let's Eat

My friend Lynne gave me this little round mesh birdfeeder a few years ago.  It's designed to feed black oil sunflower seeds, but I fill it with cardinal mix (containing sunflower seeds -- shelled & whole, safflower seeds, and shelled peanuts).  All of the birdies love this feeder and to alleviate the mess of shells on the patio below, I added a tray feeder beneath to help catch the mess, plus it give the birds another place for dining.  I have this feeder hanging right outside the dining room window so I can enjoy the view of the amazing variety of birds the feeder attracts.

 Red-Bellied Woodpecker (male)

Pine Siskins really love it!

Pine Siskin & Cardinal

Black-Capped Chickadee & Downy Woodpecker

Female Cardinal & House Sparrows

Goldfinches

More Goldfinches

Stereo Chickadees

Thanks for this feeder Lynne!  My birds and I really enjoy it!



Pileated Love

For the first time in many weeks, I didn't have to work last Saturday morning, so I got to be home and watch some birds.  I had just gotten done starting a load of laundry and I heard the unmistakable call of a Pileated Woodpecker.  I looked out the patio door and there he was -- on the suet feeder about 3 yards away!

I dashed upstairs for my camera and got some good photos of him on the tree nearby.  (See that nice red "mustache?"  That's how you tell the males from the females -- females have a black mustache.)

And on one of the other big suet feeders in the backyard.

A female Pileated Woodpecker has been an infrequent backyard visitor in the past, but this is the first time I've seen a male here.

I'm always amazed at how huge these birds are!  This suet feeder is about 12 inches long.  The long tail prop on this suet feeder makes it really easy for big woodpeckers like this to spend lots of time enjoying a suet treat.

This afternoon Mr. Pileated was back again and decided to check out the "upside down" suet feeder.  He had a little bit of trouble figuring out the best way to get suet from this feeder....

But he eventually managed to hang upside down and satisfy his suet cravings.

I really love these big woodpeckers and I'm so glad this guy has decided to start frequenting my backyard.  He always announces his arrival with his loud call, so we get some good chances to watch him for the few minutes he's here.  Fortunately I stocked up on suet a couple weeks ago and will be watching the ads for future suet sales.  I would gladly spend my last dollar on suet if it guaranteed daily sightings of these awesome woodpeckers. 

Spring in March

March of 2012 was one for the records books -- warmest ever! I don't think we even saw a single flake of snow the entire 31 days. As a result, spring arrived about 5-6 weeks earlier than ever before. Now that April's here, we're actually experiencing more March-like weather, so I'm wishing for March weather again and reliving those spring-like days in these photos that I took during March.

I cleaned out my pantry one Saturday morning and found a partial bag of old, dried-up raisins. I dumped them out in the bird tray on the deck thinking that perhaps the robins or house finches might enjoy them. I was very surprised the next morning to find these honeybees feasting on the sweet raisins. Two of my neighbors have beehives, so I'm hoping these bees were some from their hives that survived our mild winter.

A few years ago Mr. Johnson got a deer, but he decided not to mount the antlers. He was just going to throw them away, but I told him I wanted to nail them to a dead tree in the backyard for the birds to perch on. There's a birdfeeder nearby and the birds actually do use the antlers for perching because all the branches have fallen off the dead tree. One afternoon when I was putting out yarn scraps for nesting material, I noticed that these antlers have also been munched on by some hungry little critters.
I've heard that small rodents will chew on antlers in the woods, but I always thought it was strictly when they were laying on the ground. I was surprised and amazed to see that they were even able to find these antlers attached 5 feet up a tree. They've done a pretty good job of chewing up this "bird perch!"

Last September at the Midwest Birding Symposium, I bought one of these alpaca nesting balls from my friend Kimberly who owns All Things Alpaca, LLC. It sat in my dining room all winter just waiting for spring nesting season. With spring birds arriving early this year, I decided it was time to get that nesting ball hung outside where it belonged. A couple days after this photo was taken, I moved the nesting ball to a tree branch in the hopes that maybe the birds would be more likely to notice it there......

In just the last few days, I've notice the nesting ball is looking pretty ratty -- something's been pulling on those alpaca fibers! I know the chickadees are busy in the little nest box in my front yard, so I did a little snooping the other nite..... Sure enough, mixed in with the grass and moss, there's all kinds of soft alpaca fiber! With the cold nites we've been having again lately, I'm sure Mrs. Chickadee really appreciates that cozy little nest she's built (and so will her babies).

My Nanking cherries put on a beautiful display of flowers in the middle of March. I know the birds love these cherries once they're ripe, so I'm hoping the overnite, below freezing temps we've had lately haven't frozen off the developing cherries.

Late last summer, I bought a purple butterfly bush at local garden center. The blossoms were beautiful and even though it was still a small bush, the butterflies found it right away and loved it. I know it's a Zone 5 plant, but luckily we had a Zone 5 winter this year in Minnesota and I was thrilled to see this plant is still alive in my butterfly garden!

A little red squirrel is living underneath the utility shed. She showed up one afternoon to raid the peanut feeder. Seeing her round little tummy makes me think that there will probably be more little red squirrels in my backyard this summer! What do you think?

Spring birds also began arriving earlier than in previous years. On March 26th, a Eurasian Collared Dove showed up in the backyard. It was only here for that one day, but they're becoming quite common in Minnesota, so maybe I'll be seeing them here more frequently too.

A couple male Red-Winged Blackbirds had a little showdown at the birdfeeder one morning. Aren't they handsome? Fortunately, they were more interested in eating than defending their territory, and both of them had to fly away when a Bluejay showed up at the birdfeeder too. I love Red-Winged Blackbirds and feel fortunate that they nest nearby and are regular backyard birdfeeder visitors for at least 6 months of the year.

Hope you're enjoying spring in your backyard too!

Sunflowers & Squirrels

Last summer I planted some sunflower seeds in my garden. I didn't plant the giant sunflowers because I didn't think that anything growing 14 feet tall and with a heavy seed head could withstand the strong winds we sometimes get in our backyard and I didn't want the sadness of seeing those flowers on the ground after a summer thunderstorm. So these sunflowers I planted only grew to about 10 feet tall with much smaller seed heads, but they sure were purdy!
I planted them right by the clothesline so I got to enjoy them every time I went out to hang up laundry for drying. It was also really neat to see who visited those sunflowers -- goldfinches seemed to like them the best!

And once fall arrived with the first killing frost, other birds flew in to take advantage of the sunflower seed bounty, including this handsome male cardinal who really had to work for his treat!

Before the frost arrived, I harvested some of the fullest seeds heads and dried them in the garage so I could put them out for the birds in the wintertime. I added a few to the feeder pole on my deck next to the finch's tube feeders, but never noticed that the finches were too interested in them. However, now that we're getting early spring weather, look who's back from hibernation under the storage shed and found my sunflower seed heads.......

One afternoon last week in a pouring rain, I looked out the patio door and saw this hungry little red squirrel on a very precarious and slender perch helping himself to sunflower seeds.

It was such a rotten day that I didn't have the heart to chase him away and grabbed my camera instead.

I was amazed at his ability to perch on the smallest of branches with just his hind feet and eat his fill of these seeds while seeming to hang out in mid-air.

Here's the branch he was perched on! I still can't believe it was able to hold him -- especially after eating almost all the seeds on this sunflower head!

I have a few of last summer's sunflower heads remaining in the garage to put out for the birds. Hopefully the finches and cardinals will still have an opportunity to enjoy them, but I think their chances are much slimmer now since the red squirrels discovered this treat too!

It's time!

I took the cage protector off my suet log a few weeks ago once the grackles left the yard and raccoons were no longer a problem. The woodpeckers loved having easy access to the entire log -- especially the bigger Hairy and Red-Bellied woodpeckers.

But look who I caught eyeing the suet log yesterday.......did you notice the top hole was completely empty?

Yupper!! And here's why! That big ol' crow beak can clean out a suet log in a quick hurry compared to a tiny little Downy woodpecker beak!

So right after I took these pictures, I went out and put the cage back over the suet log. I know the woodpeckers aren't happy, but at least it's not a crow feeder anymore!

Downy Finds a New Treat

Hello! What do we have here?

Is this actually something to eat? Why haven't I noticed it before?

Well, this isn't going to be easy getting a meal here, is it?

I'll just have to try and turn a little bit more, but there sure isn't much to perch on!
Jeez, this is really challenging! It sure looks a lot easier when the nuthatches are doing it!

Woodpeckers!

I have more woodpeckers at house this summer than I can ever remember before! Mostly Downys and many of them juveniles. This is a photo I took this morning -- featuring 5 Downys and 1 male Red-Bellied. What you can't see in this photo are 3 more Downys hanging onto the spindles of the deck railing below this photo! I have to refill this log every other day (it holds 1 suet cake). I also added another peanut feeder to a hook at the other side of the deck.

Another "first" for this year is a juvenile Red-Bellied Woodpecker at the feeders. The adults were occasional visitors all winter but have been showing up at the feeders more regularly this spring. Then one day not too longer I spotted their youngster at the peanut feeder. This little guy is perfectly capable of getting his own food, but I was thrilled to capture this series of photos from my dining room window earlier this morning. "Dad" came to the suet feeder while "Junior" just happened to be perched on the deck railing. What follows is the only interaction I've seen this summer between this Red-Bellied Woodpecker adult and baby.

"Hey Dad, is that for me?"

"Hurry! I'm so hungry!"
"Nom, Nom, Nom!"

Do woodpeckers have saliva??

Gag!

"OK, is that enough?" Dad asks

"Please sir, I want some more!"

Dad's thinking, "Hey look, peanuts!"