February 17: Come in!

Roused from our coffee

by friendly knocking--

woodpecker on suet.

 

Posted with Blogsy

January 5: For winter

Woodpecker holes from summer

filled now with squirrel's stash:

seven acorns.

Posted with Blogsy

May 1: May Day

May Day, or Beltane--the pagan holiday celebrating the fertility of the verdant earth. This morning a Red-bellied Woodpecker was chirring repeatedly in the yard while I ate breakfast. Now a flicker's staccato whinny, cardinal's sputtering, and always the titmouse's incessant, loud whistles. The lawn greens in this vernal sunlight, bulbs bloom, buds swell. So much going on out there right now, the "season for loving."

Woodpecker calling
with uplifting urgency:
May Day! I need you!

September 18: Harvest

At a friend's farm: tomato vines laden with reddening globes, tight corn cobs sprouting tassles, peppers painted red and green by ripening, pumpkins swelling on the vines, here and there bodies of butternut squashes tan mounds upon the ground, young chickens pecking Japanese beetles in the sunlit yard, a woodpecker spiraling the trunk of the dying pine struck by lightning, and a broad-winged hawk silently passing over the chickadee on the branch...

Garden pregnant
with rounded bodies of squash.
Ripening: sun passing overhead.

August 31:Three Woodpeckers

On my way to work this morning, I spotted a pair of pileated woodpeckers flying to a tree in the neighbor's yard. They landed on opposite sides of the trunk simultaneously, one slightly above the other.  Pileated woodpeckers have a strong, year-round pair bond, and I smiled to see them, thinking that perhaps they were re-bonding after finally having kicked out this summer's youngs.

When I got out of my car at work, I heard a pileated woodpecker calling from one of the trees nearby. My office is in the same neighborhood as my house. The woodpecker I heard couldn't have been one of the pair I just saw, and yet it would undoubtedly be in their territory--pileated woodpeckers have large territories of 200 acres or more. I wondered if perhaps it was a youngster, on its own but not ready yet to wander too far from its nesting site.

Periodically throughout the day I heard what was probably this same woodpecker calling--that crazy, Woody Woodpecker laugh. I couldn't help but think that it was yelling because it was annoyed at being ignored by its parents, who were out on a day's date at the other end of the neighborhood.

Woodpecker couple:
strengthening their pair bond now
that the young have fledged.

October 11: Back Yard Birds

This morning as I was sitting at my desk looking out upon the golden ash leaves shining in the morning sun, I noticed a bit of bird action back there, as well. Little birds were flitting and flickering among the leaves. So, still in my pajamas, I sat on my back step with my binoculars and tried to see what was moving through the yard. I hung out long enough that a leaf twirled through the air and landed on my back.

In order of quantity, here's what I observed:
Black-capped chickadee--hard to keep track of numbers, they were so active
Tufted titmouse--several moving back and forth from feeder to trees
White-breasted nuthatch--a pair hanging around the shed roof and nearby trees, occasionally on the feeder
Downy woodpecker--one female on the birch tree in the driveway, calling
Crow--one cawing down the street
The leaves are still heavy on the trees here, so I think a brown creeper may have been in that mix, too--the birds were hard to track once they got up in the leaves.

As is often the case, my favorite bird to watch was the chickadee. A small local flock seems to make the rounds a few times a day, and I always feel a little blessed when it's my feeders' turn for a visitation. These perky little birds are constantly entertaining, being both sociable and acrobatic. I watched one dangle from the end of a leaf to snap up an insect. Another landed on the lawn among the dead ferns and hopped up and down trying to catch something. All the while, they call to one another, like kids text-messaging.

I recently came up with an idea for a book I'd (jokingly) like to publish: The 100 Cutest Birds of North America. Chickadees are definitely in there. And titmice. And nuthatches. And probably the downy--our smallest woodpecker--too. Perhaps I'm a little biased toward these birds I see and enjoy every day.*

As the trees redden and leaves fall, it's somehow reassuring to know that most of those five species will likely be with me through the winter. The nuthatch may decide to head a little farther south, but the rest are locals. We're all in this together.

Small cove of my yard
harbors the local songbirds
through every season.

*Other birds I'd include: Gambel's quail, ivory gull, saw-whet owl, golden-crowned kinglet, least sandpiper, goldfinch, piping plover, puffin, yellowthroat, most other warblers, clay-colored sparrow, and Anna's hummingbird...

September 3: Four Woodpeckers

This morning when I got out of bed I looked out the back window to see why the blue jays were making such a ruckus. On the lawn were dispersed three robins, a squirrel, and a flicker. The flicker was almost underneath the window, and my appearance there caused him to look up. Flickers often "graze" on lawns for ants and other lawn-loving grubs, but they aren't usually right under my window. So I got a good, albeit brief, look at his smooth brown belly covered with black spots, the black band across his breast, and the little black "mustache" pattern on his face that told me he was a male. Then he flew off into the trees, flashing his characteristic white rump. The robins and squirrel hung out for a while longer, and a downy woodpecker whinnied from the trees over our shed.

Woodpeckers have been especially verbal today. When I got to work, a pileated woodpecker was calling loudly and repeatedly from somewhere nearby. Yesterday afternoon he made so much noise that I finally went outside and spotted him preening in a birch tree above my co-worker's truck. The National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America describes the sound as "a loud wuck note or series of notes, given all year." That hardly conveys the crazy cackle that resonates throughout the neighborhood when a pileated woodpecker feels like making some noise. In addition to his wuck-ing, I also heard another flicker and a hairy woodpecker--a total of four woodpecker species in one day without even going outside. I may be a lazy birder during my work week, but I can't complain about the birds I do manage to see or hear.

Posing on my lawn,
flicker shows his true colors.
Then--white rump flashing.

June 26: Backyard Birds

After mowing the lawn today, I did something unusual for me. I sat on the back step in the sun and... well, that's it. I just sat on the back step. For about ten minutes I did nothing but just sit there and live in the moment. My cat, who is strictly an indoor cat occasionally allowed supervised visits onto the porch, came over and, instead of trying to make her usual escape attempt, curled up in my lap. Apparently she wanted to live in the moment too. She purred and dozed, while I looked around and thought about how much I love my back yard.

Back yard, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love the ever-present rushing music of the river that passes over your feet. I love the canopy of oak, beech, ash, and maple leaves that surround you, leaving just the right-sized opening for sky and sunlight. I love the frilly fans of ferns that border your edges and the tall goldenrod along the porch steps. I love your view of my neighbor's orange day lilies. I love how you keep my flowers healthy, even the wild ones. And I love how the combination of water and tree cover brings birds into your sheltered embrace.

If you don't go looking for birds, sometimes they have a way of finding you. While I sat there enjoying my yard in all its early summer greenery, I heard the following:
cardinal whistling up a storm in the neighbor's yard
squalling group of crows upriver
broad-winged hawk high overhead
pileated woodpecker cackling somewhere downriver
loon calling in flight
warbling vireo moving through the trees above the river
several robins singing throughout the neighborhood
song sparrow across the street
hummingbird squealing through the yard, hopefully on its way to my bee balm

I've found fewer birds than that while out actually looking for them! And my cat was oblivious to it all.

Sometimes sitting still
turns out to be the best way
to hear birds, here, now.

June 24: Young Woodpecker

Yesterday I heard a red-bellied woodpecker calling outside the office. This afternoon I happened to spot one hanging out on a tree about 20 yards away from the window. Except for its black and white checked back and wings, this bird was dull brown all over, with just the faintest wash of red on the back of its dusky head--obviously a juvenile, probably a female. This is a species that only made a serious incursion into Maine five years ago, so it was exciting to see living proof that at least one breeding pair nests in my neighborhood. And here she was, on her own, a youngster loosed into her first summer.

I sat and observed as she loafed on the tree trunk in one place for about 20 minutes, a typical lazy teenager. For a while she seemed to contemplate the tree trunk, looking at it from various angles. Then she wiped her bill on the bark for a minute or so. She picked a few bugs off the trunk. Then she spent about 15 minutes casually preening. Chickadees hopped around her, and a flock of waxwings passed through the trees. A catbird sang a few odd phrases, mewed, then flew into the woods. But the young woodpecker clung to the side of the tree, her stiff tail feathers bracing her against the trunk as she pecked and smoothed her feathers. What does it feel like to have real feathers for the first time?

Eventually she flew a few trees closer, to a shad bush laden with berries. She began acrobatically eating some of the berries, looking a lot like a waxwing as she twisted among the branches, craning her neck to nab the plump red little fruits. Duty called, so I left off watching at that point, but I felt privileged to have been witness to half an hour in the life of this young bird.

Woodpecker pauses;
I pause to watch--a young bird
preening new feathers.

June 20: Dove

It's Father's Day, but my dad's away today and I haven't come across any inspiring paternal images to write about in his honor--except for the pileated woodpecker (a bird my dad always enjoys seeing), which has been insistently calling up and down the river today for some unknown masculine purpose. If he were home, my dad would probably be hearing it too, as my parents and I live about a mile apart on the same river.

The report called for rain this afternoon, so I spent this sunny morning working in my garden, trying to create a bit of order in the chaos of the flourishing beds. While I clipped and deadheaded and weeded, I could hear a neighbor's chicken clucking and cackling, apparently having just laid her morning egg. I love that we voted to allow people in town to have up to nine chickens--it just makes so much sense in this age of sustainability and trying to eat locally. And I love that several of my neighbors have chickens, even though we don't directly benefit. When I was growing up, my grandparents kept chickens, so I have fond memories of caring for Henrietta, Betty, Harcourt et al. and collecting their eggs. The clucks and cackles of chickens are soothing noises. I'm currently reading Sy Montgomery's new book Birdology, which begins with an excellent chapter on chicken culture. You'll never look at a chicken the same way again.

All my co-workers except one (who's building a coop next summer) have chickens now, but I have no desire to own any myself, so enjoying the clucking of the neighbors' birds a block away will have to do. But then I noticed a pert brown mourning dove pecking away in the gravel of our driveway. There's my chicken, I thought. Doves are like miniature chickens, soft and gentle, always hanging around the yard or on the driveway. This one even flew to the sidewalk behind me for a while as I was puttering in the garden just a few yards away. Granted, we aren't eating any dove's eggs for breakfast, but their presence, like that of a flock of smooth little chickens, is a small comfort.

Not tame, but the dove
on my lawn brings as much joy
as a flock of hens.

March 22: Woodpecker

As I logged on to write my post for this afternoon, knowing I wanted to write about the pileated woodpecker I saw this morning, I had to laugh--two other bird blogs that I follow had also posted something about pileated woodpeckers: the Stokes Birding Blog (though mostly about the ivory-billed) and   the Mass. Breeding Bird Atlas blog. For the record, I did not, however, laugh like Woody Woodpecker (who is, by all appearances, a pileated woodpecker), although my mother has been known to do a mean imitation of the cartoon character.

I was greeted by that crazy laughter (from the real bird, not my mother or Woody) this morning as I walked into the office. Pileated woodpeckers are particularly vocal this time of year as they noisily establish their territorial dominance and their need for a good woman by both calling and loudly drumming on whatever will make the most noise. Spring is in their veins. They have large territories, and their drumming can resonate over a mile; I'm sure the pair that hangs out here at the office is the same one I see in my own yard at the other end of the street.

After hearing his wild cackling off and on for the past few weeks, I finally got to see the male this morning thanks to an alert co-worker whose window faces the woods. He called us in and we all watched the big ol' woodpecker flap into the woods. Those flashy white wing patches and bright red crest and facial splash make him stand out among the bare trunks. He is our largest woodpecker, after all. A bird like that doesn't exactly keep a low profile.

Interesting side notes: The pileated's pointy "cap" is actually the source of its odd name: it means "having a crest." And for those who care about such things, you can pronounce it PILL-e-ated or PILE-e-ated.

A few summers ago, this female was so intent on eating grubs from this rotten stump outside the Land Trust office that she paid no attention to my presence.

Red-crowned and laughing--
raucous king of the forest,
I think she hears you!