Feathered Thief

[BosnMate]

This was shot through our kitchen window, a wood pecker stealing sugar water from the hummingbirds. He must have a fairly long tongue, because he is able to put his beak up to the small hole, and get sugar water from inside.

 

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[tamrock]

Interesting bird. I don't see any of those around here. Nice shot of him.

 

[Jim in Idaho]

Good pics!
Jim

 

[curious kat]

What cutie...is that a "Hairy woodpecker"? Should introduce him to my "gal". Very nice shots!

 

[vpnavy]

Nice photographs and one smart wood pecker! Thanks for sharing...

 

[ronwoodcraft]

I don't recall ever seeing one of those. I just looked it up in my bird book, and found it to be an "Acorn Woodpecker".

When I used to feed the hummers, I had a Hairy Woodpecker that would do that. I remember the hummers didn't like him at all, and they would be dive bombing him, and it didn't bother him a bit. He would just keep siphoning. :lol

 

[BosnMate]

Thanks Ron, you just brought back some childhood memories. Seventy years ago, probably most of the fence posts in California were redwood, and all over California, out in the country along rural roads, and double especially in the Sierra Nevada foothills, along the country roads, there were fence posts that were loaded with drilled holes full of acorns. I'd forgotten all about them until now. Redwood doesn't rot, but it is relatively soft for the bird to drill. Now days, iron posts and treated wood other than redwood have replaced these posts, so redwood posts full of acorns are a thing of the past. These pictures I'm posting weren't taken by me, they come from Google images. I can't remember the last time I saw one of these fence posts, but when I was a kid they were common and taken for granted. The "Acorn Woodpecker" would drill the holes in the post, and then stuff an acorn into it, which was jammed in really tight, like they were able to measure and get a perfect fit.

Looking at the background of this fence post, I can almost smell the tar weed. The horses would be sticky black up to their eyeballs from having to graze in the tar weed; which has a unique smell, and is really nasty stuff on your pants when you walk through it.

The yellow flowers behind this post could very well be tar weed.

 

[ronwoodcraft]

Thanks for the update. That is really cool!!

 

[ronwoodcraft]

I tried a picture of the page in the book. Hard to get the page flat. You can click on the pic a few times to enlarge.

 

[outdoorfunblonde]

Some birds are really sneaky and quite smart, especially for having a "bird brain"
LOL I dont know what kind of woodpeckers we have here, other than pesky ones!
I didn't think woodpecker would care to bother treated lumber...
until after several days of trying to see where the woodpecker was while he was pounding his head...
finally I discover that he'd been working on the underside of my kids' wooden swingset my dad made!
He'd made himself a hole and you couldnt see him!
I had to crawl up there and wrap wire around the top to keep that lil bugger from doing further damage!
What an unexpected pain in the butt that was...