Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Downy Woodpeckers In Our Midst

Look at this. I had barely put the peanut butter in the feeder when the downy woodpecker was on it. I still had my hand on the lid when he started pecking away at it! In fact, when I opened the peanut butter block I reached up, with the block in my hand, and three bushtits landed right on the top of the block. I had to brush them off in order to get it into the feeder.

When I took this shot I was about 3 feet from the feeder.

The bushtits, sparrows, and this downy woodpecker are the most relaxed around us, even though we frequently burst through the door heading out to the deck and shriek and wave (we're waving and shrieking at the starlings). We've all come to the conclusion that the other birds know this, because they ignore us now. They remain on the various feeders. Some of them look rather apprehensive, but that's about it.

1 comment:

Louise said...

The starlings are a bit of a nuisance in my garden too, they come along and eat all the fatballs before the smaller birds get a chance. Frighten them off and they are back before you know it. They pinch all of the blackbirds raisins too. x