Karen and I were awakened at about 6:00 by a sapsucker drumming outside our bedroom.
When I first walked out to feed the birds, my most important morning activity, I heard two Pileated Woodpeckers apparently calling to each other within 50 m of our house. There have been two flying and calling on our property for the last two weeks. The young male (dark brown [not black] primaries and wing coverts) has been calling and drumming and feeding at our feeder for a month (the first Pileated at our feeder in years). Yesterday I heard and saw a male and female Red-bellied Woodpecker drumming simultaneously about 5 ft. apart at the top of an aspen. First I had ever heard them drumming together. They had excavated a hole in this tree last year. It broke at that point and the top fell into our yard and across a saw-whet banding line. Bob McGuire kindly chain-sawed the debris. Hairy and downy at the feeder, and a pair of red-bellied and now pileated and sapsuckers in the yard. Wonderful. Dwindling numbers of quite vocal goldfinch and siskin and junco and Purple Finch. The Fox Sparrow that was singing yesterday may have left last night. Tree Sparrows and more calling. Just wanted to share a delightful morning. Besides, in the last two days I have confirmed two Merlin nests, monitored incubation at a third, and found the general location of another. -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
