Saturday, May 3, 2014

May 3, 2014

What Does a Baby Woodpecker Eat?
May 3, 2014

For months I have watched a male Golden-fronted Woodpecker stay busy in my backyard.  Early last September, he started digging a hole in a tree right outside my sewing room window. 

I posted this photo about September 11, 2013 of the woodpecker seeming to have a conversation with a green Budgerigar (Budgie) who had been investigating the hole while the woodpecker was away from it for a brief time.  He seemed to let the Budgie know that this was HIS home and that the Budgie could find his own!  The Budgie looked around and found a crack in a limb of the same tree and showed it to his mate and they decided to leave the woodpecker's home alone.  Over the following weeks, the woodpecker continued to work on the hole and got it suited for family life.

In this photo, the female is taking Ruby-Red Grapefruit to the babies.  
The last few weeks we have watched the male and female woodpecker take turns in the hole, probably sitting on the eggs in the nest.  Today they started taking food into the hole.  In one 15 minute period while I watched them, between the two of them, they returned at least 12 times with food for their little family.  I could HEAR loud chirps coming from the hole when the parents weren't there.  I put out a grapefruit for them to share with their young ones.  Last year I had watched some baby woodpeckers spend a lot of time at the oranges I would set out for them.  The parents would take the fruit to the nest first but then when the young ones could fly, they took them to the fruit and fed them until they learned to do it themselves. 
Here the male has brought a...cockroach!  He brought a lot of them during the day!
The parents seemed to provide an endless variety of food for their babies and a lot of it, I did not recognize. 
This looks like some gooey bright orange stuff.  I might prefer it to the cockroaches.
It was amazing how quickly they dropped off their food item and left in search of another.  They would return usually within a couple of minutes with some other item for their young.
This was a big juicy worm.  It is longer than the woodpeckers beak.
There were so many interesting courses to their meal!  None of them appealed to me.  Yuck!  Well, maybe the grapefruit and orange, but not after it has been in the same woodpecker mouth that carried cockroaches, worms, and water bugs!

Another interesting thing that transpired, is that they did regular housekeeping - taking out the trash.  At first I thought that one of them was rejecting something the other had brought, but on closer inspection, I think it was the trash.  Don't ask...

Dad taking out the trash.
It has been a very interesting day watching their activities.  I sure might get more done if their nest was far away, but I really am enjoying watching them every day.

Other than Woodpecker Watching, my day has been rather quiet.  I was up early for the house keeper.  I did laundry and some sorting of things, like junk mail.  Then I went to get gas for the lawn mower and for my car.  About 9:00 I started mowing the backyard and the area out by the water.  I usually make Ron do that part out by the water, but he took out a bunch of smaller trees last week and that made it easier to do the mowing.  I spent about 3 hours working in the yard, mowing, filling bird feeders and ponds and pulling some weeds.  Hummingbirds and warblers flew through the yard while I was working out there and came again later in the day.  I worked a little in the garage.  This may be the last cool Saturday for a long time and I wanted to take advantage of it.  This morning it was in the mid-50s when I woke up.  That is great for May.  It quickly warmed up but didn't get hot.  It was a beautiful day with a clear blue sky.

I had a young Baltimore Oriole that enjoyed the grapefruit until the female woodpecker ran him off.  He hung around for much of the day and was partial to grapefruit over oranges.
When Ron got home around noon we chatted for a while and then he set the sprinklers to water the yard, before going to pick up some Bar-B-Que for our lunch.  It was very good and is from a new place not too far from us, named Buddy's.
 There was a small bird on the birdbath that I have not identified.  I am open to opinions.
It came to the birdbath at the same time a sparrow did and at first I thought that is what it was, but the beak is not a sparrow beak.  It was just slightly larger than the sparrow.
This Great Kiskadee posed for me for a while.
Lots of the birds enjoyed the birdbath.

I sewed for a little bit, on a quilt in progress.  I didn't make much progress, but enjoyed working on it.  I may get back to it this evening.  All the laundry is done, all the dishes are done, the house is clean, so it just might be time to sew - if only my sewing table didn't face the woodpecker hole!

It has been fun to HEAR the birds all day.  I did a little reading and I plan to bake some cookies, but it has been a relaxing day for me and I appreciate that!

Mom is due home tonight after over 3 months visiting my sister in Idaho, while my brother-in-law from Idaho has been here, staying at her house while he works on his next birding book and has been busy with speaking engagements, research, and book signings from his last book that came out in January.  He is also enjoying my woodpecker viewing spot.

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