Flicker Feeding Frenzy!
Flicker at Larrapin (This one poking in the ground...)
I got to see an amazing site the other day. A group of five or more flickers in a feeding frenzy! The picture above, unfortunately, is not from that event, but it’s a snapshot I had of one of our local batch of flickers. This is how I most often see them, poking around on the ground under the blackjack oak, the pine trees or the magnolias, foraging for I’m-not-sure-what. (Oh! just read up at the flicker link above and turns out they eat mostly ants and beetles…so that explains the digging…)
The amazing group I got to see was chowing down on the seedheads of smooth sumac, a little tree that often grows along roadsides and fencelines around here. (See images below.) Most folks consider them kind of weedy, even invasive in places although they are a prairie native. But I have a whole new respect for them now after seeing that whole group of flickers flapping and fluttering on top of the little trees devouring the reddish seed heads! I watched for a long while as they would alight on the tips of the thin branches, then flap and flap to stay upright while the branch bent under the weight of the large birds, all while eating at top speed. Fall off. Fly up. Repeat. It was a lovely and unforgettable sight.
Smooth Sumac Via Google Images
Once again, I’m reminded that, to amend the cliche, one man’s trash may be one bird’s treasure. In a wildlife garden, if the birds love it, the gardener probably loves it too, um, with the possible exceptions of poison ivy and poke weed…
I remember living in Western North Carolina and the utility crews would come through every few years and cut down a large stand of sumac growing under the power lines. I always thought a little tree ID would go a long way with those folks, because what better to have under power lines than a plant that never gets higher than about ten feet and often shades/crowds out species that will grow taller? I’d never cared about the sumac-whackings till early one spring when I watched a large group of bluebirds, no doubt hungry at winter’s end, happily eating the seedheads…
So I’m happy we have a small stand of smooth sumac growing at the top of the property and a few along the northern border too, because the birds sure are enjoying it. And I sure am enjoying the birds.
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Don’t miss any—you can subscribe by Email here. You can also get bonus links and recipes by “liking” our Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/larrapin.garden. Geesh, we’re even on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LarrapinGarden. Thanks for stopping by. What winter birds are in your backyard now?
Woodpeckers O’Plenty: Suet Feeders
Yellow-Bellied Woodpecker
Here at Larrapin we’ve kept suet feeders going every winter and spring for years now. The result is a cornucopia of woodpeckers! Since the feeders are outside the kitchen window, they provide lots of entertainment while doing dishes. Some, like the red-belly woodpecker above, are very bold and can be easily photographed while I lean over the sink.
Pine Creeper...ok, his rump anyway
Others are notoriously difficult to catch on film, like the Pine Creeper above. Not only does he blend with the pine tree bark, he is very, very fast and always in motion. Usually he’s creeping around eating the bits of suet the nuthatch stashes behind the pine bark!
Female Downy Woodpecker, Our darling...
Isn’t she sweet! In this photo above she discovered the suet cage door had been left open and couldn’t believe her luck! Thankfully we latched the feeder before the suet block fell out. If not, at least one of our weiner dogs would have mysteriously gained five pounds overnight and then pooped birdseed for a week!
My special darling, the Carolina Wren
All kinds of birds take turns at the blocks, like the Carolina Wrens.
Some are a bit piggish at the suet...
These guys above just eat and eat! I believe I’ve read that ‘eating like a bird’ translates to eating about half your body weight every day or so…
Pine Creeper
There he is again, the flash that is the Pine Creeper. Quick, snap the picture!! OK, so it’s a little blurry, but he’s blurry even in real life because he’s always moving so fast.
Traffic Jam
Everyone wants the suet block for their own. But sometimes if you are a little junco you have to just jump on a grab a bite because Big Mr. Piggish could be here all day! Nevermind that he’s staring you down…
There are only two woodpeckers that do not show up on the suet blocks: Flickers and Pileated. (Although the Flicker has been seen on the ground under the suet feeder picking up chips that fell down…) Next week I’ll post what I saw a whole family of FIVE flickers happily eating at Larrapin. Some people call it a ‘trash tree’ but after watching the birds’ delight, I never will!
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Don’t miss any—you can subscribe by Email here. You can also get bonus links and recipes by “liking” our Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/aLarrapinGarden. Geesh, we’re even on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LarrapinGarden. Thanks for stopping by—leave a comment as to what is going on in YOUR winter backyard…
Bad video of a gorgeous bird! (Pileated Woodpecker)
Hi all! I’m still without internet at home per the prior post…but the local coffeeshop is getting quite used to me working here…even when I’m actually working rather than playing with the garden blog! (Thank you, Perk on Wedington…)
I took this choppy, grainy video at super-zoom out a window. Then tried iMovie for the first time and got that weird “My First Project” frame. But being over my head tech-wise is nothing new for me.
So here is our big, beautiful Pileated woodpecker going to town on what must be a delicious spot in a knotty oak tree. Enjoy it…he sure was!
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Don’t miss any—you can subscribe by Email here. You can also get bonus links and recipes by “liking” our Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/larrapin.garden. We’re even on Twitter athttp://twitter.com/LarrapinGarden. Thanks for stopping by—leave a comment and share what birds are in your backyard this holiday season!
Woodpeckers are back
Once the weather gets cold, the woodpeckers reappear on the suet feeder. With the chilly week we’ve had, it’s rare to look out the kitchen window at the suet feeder and NOT see a woodpecker on it. Above, our adored red-head, the Yellow-Bellied Woodpecker. Occasionally, at the right angle, it’s visible how he got his name.
This tiny Downey Woodpecker has no trouble running off the big guys to get his lunch. They look so small compared to the Yellow-Bellied!
And here’s our 2009 pride and joy: an immature Hairy Woodpecker. It’s so fun to see the young ones figure out the suet feeder. Between them all, they are eating us out of house and home and making homemade suet cakes is on the agenda for the next few days.
Here’s another woodpecker post with pics over at the old blogger site:
Another juvenile woodpecker: a sapsucker??
Which of your favorite birds are showing up this time of year? Please leave a comment and let me know! (Bloggers just love comments….) 🙂
Read MoreMid-November, no frost yet
Some days it looks like November around the farm. The wood pile, for one, is growing steadily. Since the ice storm of January brought down around 20 small to medium trees on our three acres, plus countless branches out of even larger trees, there’s been plenty of material to create an enormous wood pile that Mendy is steadily splitting and stacking for this winter. So that feels like November. But the balmy weather, t-shirt weather, doesn’t feel like November. We have yet to have a frost though the usual frost date is typically about October 20th.
Without a frost, there are some summer flowers still blooming away, like these Blue Sky morning glories planted to cover the corner of a chain link fence for the summer. They did a great job of doing that! While the cool wet Spring had them off to a very, very slow start…by late summer they were thick and bright.
True to their name, they open in the morning at sunrise and curl up closed in the evening. I loved this color. Next year I’d like to try the deep purple ones…
The yellow buddleia “Honeycomb” is still blooming beautifully. (The pink ones gave up the ghost weeks ago.) There are bees all over it all the time. In the mornings I find them curled up on the blooms, sleeping in them! Sleeping inside flowers, now that’s a good life.
Meanwhile, there are dahlias still covered with blooms though they are fairly raggedy by now. The bees are crazy for these dahlias too. I can’t think of the variety right now, but they are the kind you can grow from seed — Unwin’s mix I think? The other day I snapped this pic of a bumblebee enjoying a bloom.
And as I moved around to get the right angle on the picture, I noticed there was a different bumblee bee on every bloom on the plant—nearly a dozen! That’s larrapin!
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