On Thursday afternoon while reading, I happened to look outside my bedroom window and saw something bright red against the trunk of a white birch tree. Grabbing my bedside binoculars, I saw that the spot of color against the bark was the head of a Red-bellied Woodpecker. (Photo courtesy Ken Thomas. Though in this photo, the bird is not clinging to a white birch, this image depicts very well how I saw the woodpecker. See my earlier post on the Red-Bellied, October 4, 2009.)
The woodpecker stayed clinging to the trunk for many minutes while I admired how the late afternoon sun lit his head feathers into a flaming orange-red. As he turned his head this way and that I had an opportunity to appreciate the pale tawny blush to his cheeks.
Finally after what seemed a long time of inactivity, I watched as this Red-bellied Woodpecker began to descend the trunk, feet first. When finally reaching the ground, he grabbed up a black-oil sunflower seed (showered there by me for the birds) and climbed back up to the very same spot on the trunk. Not more than a half minute later, he flew to the ground, grabbed another seed, and flew up again.
After watching the Red-belly repeat this a few times, I got the inspired idea to catch him on video. I propped my small, hand-held recorder against the base of the tree, hoping to catch him in the act. But this woodpecker could not be fooled, though many other birds were (see the video below). On his next descent, on sensing the out-of-place object, he flew up again and thereafter choose a different landing spot altogether.
The Red-bellied Woodpecker has been back every day since, so there still is hope that I might yet catch him on video. We'll see.
Till then . . . Keep birds in your heart!
Georgia Anne
No comments:
Post a Comment