![]() For BirdNote, I’m Mary McCann.īird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Writers for BirdNote include Bob Sundstrom, Ellen Blackstone, Todd Peterson, Dennis Paulson and Chris Peterson. With woodpeckers, once the nights turn cold, it’s every bird for itself. Even the young, once they’re fledged, have to find their own winter quarters. Many woodpeckers roost in such cavities, usually by themselves. No, these fall excavators are chiseling out roosting cavities, snug hollows where they’ll shelter during the cold nights of fall and winter. Those that remain through the colder months – well, it’s safe to say they’re not nesting now. It turns out that some woodpecker species stay year round in the region where they nest, while others migrate south in winter. When you’re lucky, you can hear young woodpeckers, like these Pileated Woodpeckers begging from within the trunk.īut now that fall has arrived, we may hear an excavating sound again. Here the female will lay her eggs and the pair will raise their young. Barbs on the tip grab the prey while a sticky saliva holds onto it.A familiar sound of spring: a woodpecker hard at work, carving out a nest hole in a tree trunk. 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. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Diners and the Wildlife That Frequent Them.Tiny Jumping Spiders Are Endearing Predators.The Yellow-rumped Warbler Endured This Winter.The Ancient Loon Struggles With Modern Threats.Seals Visit Long Island Sound in Winter.November Welcomes the Witch-Hazel’s Blooms. ![]()
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