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Pretty bird! Lovely photo. Same bird in different light? I'm not sure.
The Bird bath photo was taken through my window and the fence photo through an opened door. Different shadows and lighting made them appear as different birds, but not so.
Nice, Dave! I've only seen one of those woodpeckers once or twice.
When I hang my suet, I hang it upside down leaving the plastic tray on, (as was suggested here). I also use a twist tie to make opening the suet cage more difficult for the squirrels. This AM, I noticed one of the suet cages was open, the plastic tray was on the ground, and there was no suet in sight. Either the squirrels were having a feast somewhere, or I have a huge rat that likes suet. I then looked across the yard and didn't see the suet cage hanging up there either...It was not on the ground as far as I could see. I will have to do some investigating later today....
PS Bald eagles have been spotted not far from my office. I thought I saw one the other day, but wasn't sure. Looks like I need to hang around the river with my camera and big girl lens!
I shouldn't say this but we do not have one squirrel in our neighborhood. There are no nests in the woods next to us either. I think the hawks and owls take care of them.
I am thinking of putting out a second suit feeder. When the redheads are here they scare away the Downy Woodpeckers.
Nice, Dave! I've only seen one of those woodpeckers once or twice.
That's surprising. We have downy's, flicker's, hairy's, red bellied and red headed all the time. What's funny today was a downy was actually sleeping inside of one of the covered feeders - I don't recall seeing that before but the temp's here hit almost 60° and it probably felt great after a couple weeks around 0°. I know it felt good to me. I actually blew leaves (even with some snow piles left), blew as much old bird seed as I could into the woods (some was still frozen to the ground), and even washed the house garage floor, plus picked up all the dog poop. More than you needed to know. But the high in 2 days is forecasted as 19°, so got'a make honey when you can.
I haven't seen much of the Downy's at all lately. I've only sees the flicker a couple times and as mentioned the same for the red-bellied. Rick reminded me I only put out one suet feeder, so only one suet cake was stolen by the squirrels or.............Lots of rain coming in...I'll take care of the feeders and suet on Sunday. They should have enough seed for a couple more days.
I don't think I had been to Upstate since late October / early November and was worried about the birds. Got there Friday night - raining and a short January thaw. Snow on the ground was wet and I was able to break through the barrier caused by the plow and back up onto the property knowing it would be frozen solid by morning.
Overnight, temps dropped from about 40 degrees to about 18 and woke up to heavy snow. About 4 inches of new snow already on the ground over a now frozen solid ice layer. Coffee, then put up a new feeder - sort of a big piece of suet with seeds pressed in. Then filled the suet feeder and one other feeder. Decided to throw some thistle out.
Didn't take long. First a blue jay, then the juncos, then the boreal chickadees, then a hairy woodpecker, then the yellow finches (very surprised to see those!), then a boreal nut hatch, then a downy. Temps still falling to about 4 degrees before the sun went down - and then down to minus 8 when I woke on Saturday. Went to the store and bought more seed. Filled two feeders and then decided to put up the thistle feeder as well.
Birds were having a party as I pulled out on Sunday!
There had been a major die off two years ago when I wasn't able to get north, and they've barely recovered. Hope this is enough to get them through the winter as I don't think I can be back before mid March. Only about 6 degrees Sunday afternoon as I pulled out with more bitter cold forecast.
Also saw two deer out which is unusual, also quite a few footprints - maybe a fisher cat. My dog fell through the ice which surprised us both.
01-10-2018, 11:36 AM
But the high in 2 days is forecasted as 19°, so got'a make honey when you can. 
