1:15 AM – Downy Woodpecker going after the suet cylinder with lots of determination and energy.
Carolina Wren discovers that there the mealworm feeder is completely empty, but returns several times for a thorough search, just to be sure. He finally got hungry enough to stop by the suet feeder for dinner, but we recorded several vain attempts to find mealworms throughout the afternoon. These birds really like mealworms, even the dried (as opposed to live) ones.
We’ve had lots of posts about molting, particularly with the Cardinals. They seem to have particularly dramatic time of it, what with the naked black head and general patchy, scruffy look. It seems as if they’ve been molting for a long time. Lately we’ve seen Cardinals that looks so severely afflicted that we’re becoming concerned that it might be some disease, and not the natural process of feather replacement. We did some research, and compared images from the Cornell website and others, and have been reassured. No matter how scrofulous the red birds look, it’s almost certainly normal plumage replacement.
We were going to present videos of pathetic looking Cardinals, but decided to spare everyone. Except for this video, of a sad Card sharing with doves. The doves look kind of sorry for him.