Bird Feeders and Woods, October 4, 2014

     I had a surprise visitor twice last week-- a red-headed woodpecker on two separate afternoons-- at the feeders. Quite a beautiful bird. The red head [no, I know it wasn't a pileated. We have them regularly] was startling as was the sleekness of the black upper body, the wing patches, and the white lower body. He or she gave a call both times and ate a bit of corn before disappearing. The other birds around [including the hairy couple] did not appear to respond to the brief presence of the medium sized woodpecker. We used to have more of them here as I remember. Or perhaps they got better at hiding. I'm not sure which.

     I threw more whole unshelled peanuts out with the predictable response of joy from bunches of blue jays in the neighborhood. The one younger that appeared to initially have a "too small misshapen" head originally has filled out to be a beauty. The blue coloring on the head and neck appear to be darker than the other jays still. The head now appears to be right-sized to me.

     Shelled peanuts enticed some tufted titmice to examine the bucket that I put them in. One was especially flapping around with vigor. Other birds and the two younger squirrels [who are now grown with beautiful bushy tails] and one of the chipmunks partook of that feast.

     The usual suspects continue to hang in the yard-- three mourning doves on a fence this morning, one in the tree yesterday, chickadees galore, goldfinches, house sparrows, hairys, downys, two rock doves [to my annoyance but I let them be], but no more grackles. Canada geese fly overhead frequently, splitting before the snow. And kestrels continue in large numbers. A couple of unidentified [as of yet] sparrows also came along. I hope they come back so I can determine what they are.

     On a recent woodswalk, the humidity was so high that some of the embedded stones were sweating. Also, I did see black bear marks on one tree in particular. My guess from the size of the marks is that the bear is big. I did not smell bear however so perhaps that particular bear was just lumbering through. We do have them across the river on a regular basis though, and close enough to smell at times. Bears smell musty to me, like a cheap rundown motel room that hasn't been cleaned up in ages.

     I was relieved to find that the idio well-meaning person who had been leaving birdseed on a fallen tree trunk in the woods has quit. It was the kind of seed that mourning doves would prefer. At any rate, it certainly isn't necessary or wise to leave such a thing out.

     We've had humidity and misty rain and the leaves are about halfway through. Folks here like to "predict" how the winter is going to be. The most accurate way is the height of the beaver lodges but I haven't been near those of late.

          sapphoq and old dog friend