Watching the Woodpeckers

Downys will eat suet, seed or even sip from a hummingbird
feeder (both pictures Margo D. Beller)

Early the other morning I sat on the porch with my coffee, trying to wake up and hoping birds would be coming to my feeders, which I had just refilled. There was nothing for the longest time and then a male downy woodpecker suddenly appeared on the dogwood tree branch beyond the feeder pole where I keep the suet feeder and a long feeder full of sunflower seeds. Either food would appeal to it, but the bird just sat there.

Maybe was waiting for the breeze to die down so it could fly safely over without being blown off course. Maybe it saw a predator flying overhead. Maybe it saw the slight movement from me on my enclosed porch when I raised my coffee cup for a sip. Downys, the smallest of American woodpeckers, can be rather skittish.

Male red-bellied woodpecker (Margo D. Beller)

I enjoy sitting on my porch in the morning when the sun is here, especially in the aftermath of the recent powerful nor'easter that produced gale-force winds that prompted me to take all the feeders inside to protect them. I figured no intelligent bird would risk being blown into the side of the house, no matter how hungry it was.

It is too easy to ascribe human emotions to birds. So as I watched Mr. Downy - I could see the red spot on the back of its head, which the female does not have - I tried to understand the way his bird brain operates.

After sitting in the tree a long time, he flew to the suet feeder, took a few tentative pecks, then flew back to the tree. This suet feeder is made in a particular way to keep pests such as grackles and starlings off the block of fat - the bird must hang under the feeder. Woodpeckers do not mind that. This suet feeder has drawn downys, the larger but similar looking hairy woodpeckers and the larger-still red-bellied woodpeckers of both sexes to it.

I've seen eight types of woodpeckers, all but one of them in New Jersey. There are many more found in the American west, the desert southwest and in the higher elevations of New England. In my area, besides the three I have mentioned, the more common ones are the flicker, the pileated and the yellow-bellied sapsucker. In fact, one day in 2011 I saw all six.

Pileated woodpecker (Margo D. Beller)

There is also the redheaded woodpecker, of the same family as the red-bellied woodpecker and, like that bird, originally from the south but slowly finding suitable breeding grounds in New Jersey despite our tendency to cut down dead trees, which is where the redheaded builds its nests and feeds on bugs. It is too easy to call a red-bellied woodpecker a redheaded woodpecker because when you look at it you see the red on its head but not the bit of pink on its belly. However, when you see a redheaded woodpecker you can see why it got the name.

The pileated (pronounced PIE-leated, although I tend to say PILL-eated) woodpecker is a crowsized bird athat got its name thanks to its striking red crest (which is what pileated means, having a crest). It has black feathers and white down the face and neck. When one flies over me in the woods I never fail to be stunned by its size and beauty. When you see one whacking at a tree you can be sure that tree is filled with carpenter ants, its preferred food, and that means the tree will likely be dead within two years. (I base this on seeing a female pileated whacking at a yard tree for several mornings running on my way to the train; the tree fell over and had to be removed within two years.)

The other woodpecker I have seen was in North Carolina, a bird that makes its nest in living, mature, long-leaf pine trees, which is why its existence is more precarious than even the redheaded woodpecker. In fact, we went to the Croatan National Forest specifically to find this bird, where it is protected.

Red-cocaded woodpecker (Margo D. Beller)

Between MH and me, I think we've photographed all the woodpeckers mentioned except for the brownish flicker, which forages for ants with its long bill and longer tongue on the ground and is easily spooked, and the yellow-bellied sapsucker, which gets its name because it drills holes in trees and drinks the sap or eats insects attracted by the sap. My apple tree is girdled with little holes from a sapsucker. One year I spent several days shooing a sapsucker from the tree before all the holes could kill it.

Meanwhile, back at the dogwood, the downy continued to sit. I finished my coffee and went back inside the house. After hanging my winter coat I went to the kitchen window. As expected, there he was, on the suet feeder, eating heartily until he flew off to a different, taller tree, out of my sight. But he'll be back.