12:32 AM – We’ve seen the Eastern Towhee in the yard a few times, but never at the feeders, where we could get a video of them. This one spent all day, off and on, eating black oil sunflower seeds.
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The Red-bellied Woodpecker visited a couple of times. He’s not shy about joining other birds at the feeder. In this video we see him confront the new Towhee, then a Cardinal.
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Typical Blue Jay seed crushing. He can be noisy. We can hear him from inside the house.
1:01 AM – Blue Jay at the platform feeder. We want more of these birds. They have the most handsome coloring of all our visitors, equal to the Cardinals.
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Later that afternoon, the Blue Jay returns. A few moments later, a Red-bellied Woodpecker lands on the feeder. They have a brief confrontations. I’d call it a stand off – the woodpecker isn’t intimidated, and the Jay takes his time leaving, getting a seed to-go. But he doesn’t want to get too close to that woodpecker beak. I’m surprised at how small the woodpecker is compared to the Jay. Except for the beak, of course.
Part of this video is slowed down to 25% of normal speed. I wish the quality of our cameras was better, but, it is what it is, as they say around here.
3:28 AM – A few days ago we reported our scheme to seed the platform feeder with pieces of the ‘pepper’ suet, with the expectation that it would repel the squirrels and raccoons. We had a video showing a squirrel checking out the feeder, and then moving on. Well, it turns out that, no, the squirrels didn’t fall for this trick. See here, as this one takes a victory lap around the feeder and birdbath, then parks himself in the middle of the pepper suet/black oil seed mix. Our only hope is that the juvenile delinquent bluebirds will show up and run him off.
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The Red-bellied Woodpecker is a much more frequent visitor than he used to be. He used to stick to the suet feeder, but he’s now at the platform and mealworm feeders also.
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The young bluebirds are still around. In this video, they’re getting feed by the adult male bluebird. They don’t assault any of the other bird species, for a change.
3:08 AM – We made some changes to the camera set up – since we weren’t getting many hummingbird videos yet, we swapped that feeder with the cylindrical ‘suet’ feeder. There’s always something going on there, usually woodpeckers, but plenty of other kinds as well.
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The big Red-bellied Woodpecker is now a regular at the mealworm feeder. Usually we only capture his head and shoulders, but the placement of the camera today shows him hanging upside down to get to the worms.
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The Carolina Wren is such a frequent visitor that we don’t usually post videos of them. We usually see them at the mealworm feeder, though they show up often at the suet feeder, as well as the platform. In this case, we had some mealworms in the platform feeder that attracted him. Wrens, like so many others, really like mealworms.
1:03 AM – Here are a few video clips from the last few days.
In this one, three species of birds share the feeder and water – Mrs. Cardinal, a Purple Finch couple, and for a few seconds a tiny Carolina Chickadee.
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The Blue Jays are still around, I happy to say:
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We’re seeing the male cardinal at the mealworm feeder a lot more lately. Here’s an extreme closeup.
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Once more, the big Red-bellied Woodpecker helps himself to mealworms. His beak looks really big and strong.
12:15 AM – The Blue Jays are back. Here’s one at the platform feeder. We really like these birds. By the way, look in the lower left background of the video for a Cardinal getting a drink of water from a very small water container.
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Here’s something new: a Purple Finch feeding what looks like an immature finch.
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The Eastern Bluebirds continue to feed young ones:
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This video of a Red-bellied Woodpecker clinging to the mealworm feeder is cool, but kind of creepy. He’s so big that we only see his head and claws, like a close-up shot of King Kong clinging to the Empire State building.
1:17 AM – A few days ago we had a video showing the Bluebird taking mealworms away from the feeder, presumably to it’s mate, or chicks. They’re not the only ones doing that. Here we see the same thing with the Carolina Wren (in this case, the Half-tailed Wren), and a Carolina Chickadee.
The Chickadee:
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We’ve never seen the Red-bellied Woodpecker at the mealworm feeder, but here he is. Compared to the usual mealworm snackbar patrons, he’s huge.
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This raccoon casually takes a shortcut across the deck. The coon-deterrent floodlight we put on the porch doesn’t faze him at all. Nor does the fact that D and the dog were just on the deck minutes before, and that we were right inside moving around. Oh well. At least he hasn’t built a den right under the deck (I think).
5:58 AM – Yesterday’s rain created a lake of birdseed in the platform feeder. Here’s one of our squirrels checking it out:
Red Bellied Woodpecker at the suet feeder. He’s a vigorous eater.
3:12 PM – This Nuthatch, usually seen at the suet feeder, has unusual color. The gray back is almost blue. Actually, I think it is blue.
6:39 AM – Neighbor dog Bruno jumped the fence and is making another early morning run through the yard. He’s on the deck when his owner calls him in.
5:54 AM – No raccoon visits again, last night. Bringing in the feeders, and using pepper suet, seems to be working.
Speaking of pepper suet, we’re going to Birds Unlimited this morning to get more. We’re going to put some in the cylindrical suet feeder on the deck, which now has only the regular non-spicy variety. That should keep the raccoons out, and mean one less feeder to bring in at night.
Here’s a Red Bellied Woodpecker attacking the suet cage. These woodpeckers get the prize for longest, strongest beaks, in the non-predator category.
1:10 PM – Here’s the Red-Bellied Woodpecker at the pepper suet feeder. He attacks for a few seconds, leaves, returns and so on. His peak is really strong looking, which is to be expected from a creature that gouges holes in trees for a living.
6:30 AM – The Goldfinch flock is still around, in spite of the invasion of Brown Headed Cowbirds. Here they are swarming the platform feeder. Note the solitary sparrow in the middle of them, unperturbed.
6:20 AM – It looks like we have two raccoons. In the video below you’ll see one shadowy figure cross the screen, followed a few seconds later by another. I thought the first one might be a cat, but the shape is more raccoon than feline. Last night I brought in the vulnerable feeders, so they got nothing. Maybe a week or so of that will permanently discourage them, but that’s optimistic.