![]() ![]() He did start chirping for a few seconds after we backed away. He was bopping along the branches of the tree less than 6ft off the ground.Īnd he didn't seem too particularly concerned with our presence frankly.īut we backed off when he didn't go anywhere. We have a couple of small trees and a couple of old lilac bushes that are kind of tree-like in our front yard. When I got home at 4:30pm (Wednesday), I checked the fir tree first thing of course! No sign of him.Ībout a half hour later, my husband found him in the front yard sitting on a branch of one of our small bush trees. I was kind of relieved because before this he didn't seem at all bothered by my presence, and it worried me that he wasn't afraid of me. When I got close he hopped on the tree & started climbing. I found him at the base of the fir tree poking around in the leaf & needle litter. And he was up there when it was getting dark. I figured if he was trying to climb the picnic table, maybe he'd be best off heading up a thick tree & away from neighborhood cats & prying eyes of predators! So we moved him over to some tall fir trees next to a shed. My husband said one of his wings looked not right. Then he hopped off the step and into the back yard. almost like it could've just been the colour of his feathers.įinally he woke up. He had what appeared to be blood on his white fluffy belly feathers. I got a second opinion, with a picture, and sure now he's a fledgling downy woodpecker. Plus he was rather small, even for a downy. and thought downy woodpecker - but he didn't look like a woodpecker. I could immediately see the black & white spot pattern and a bit of red right on top of his head. He was up on the first step of 2, curled and apparently sleeping with his head tucked in. Tuesday 4:30pm my husband arrived home to find a bird curled up on our back stoop step. Barbs on the tip grab the prey while a sticky saliva holds onto it.Northeastern Pennsylvania, city of Scranton. It extends this amazing tongue several inches to reach the grub. The bird’s tongue, perfectly adapted for the job of insect extraction, is so long that it wraps around the bird’s skull and right eye when retracted. The woodpecker will bore into a tree until it reaches a grub’s tunnel. Insects comprise 75 to 95 per cent of the Hairy Woodpecker’s diet, with wood-boring beetle larvae topping the list of favorites. In winter, depending on your surrounding habitat, the hairy can become a regular visitor to your suet feeder, though it tends to be a bit more cautious than the other birds. It breeds here in Connecticut, preferring mature forests and wooded swamps, and less frequently, orchards and wooded urban parks. Like the Downy, it can be found throughout most of North America, though it is not as abundant. The Downy Woodpeckers has a larger, look-alike cousin, the Hairy Woodpeckers ( Picoides villosus). This Downy is as big as a Red-bellied Woodpeckers, a full two and a half inches longer than the little Downy you are used to seeing. There is no mistaking the black and white pattern on the head and wings, the white belly and large white patch on the back. ![]() As you glance out the window, you notice a Downy Woodpecker fly to a nearby tree trunk and survey the area. These familiar neighbors enjoy your offerings and in return they put on a daily show for you as they flit down to the suet to break off small pieces of the fat that will help them to survive another frigid day. Your backyard suet feeder attracts several species of birds each winter, including Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, White-breasted Nuthatches, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, and Downy Woodpeckers.
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