Our Pileated Visitor

As we ate breakfast, Debby spotted a Pileated Woodpecker at the base of our cedar tree across the patio, only 3' off the ground. I grabbed the camera and tried to focus through the window, but no luck. By the time I sneaked outside, it had moved on.

It is a gorgeous bird, longer than a big crow, with bright-red crested head. I went out a few minutes later and heard its raucous laughing call and then a constant thonk thonk as it was hard at work in a Douglas Fir across the small marshy area behind our yard. But I could not locate it by sight. I don't know if we have enough forest here to maintain a breeding pair, but hope to meet one again sometime. I had previously observed a squarish hole about 15' up the trunk of our yard's Western Hemlock, and now realize it is probably the work of a prior pileated visitor.

I put up the bird seed feeder that Debby got me for my last birthday. It hangs from the eave by Debby's desk window. We have attracted various chickadees, sparrows, juncos, and towhees to it. Our squirrel spent hours at first trying to figure out how to access it, but now seems resigned to cleanup of any spilled goods on the patio underneath. He forms his mouth like a vacuum as he goes across the patio. Yuck. I call him Hoover. Later, Hoover was joined by another squirrel. We call her Eureka. We can distinguish them: Hoover is slightly larger and has a yellow dot on his back. The towhees are secondary feeders like the squirrels, scavenging bits that fall to the patio.

Hoover Owns The Patio

Our hummer feeder is attracting a continuous stream of Anna's and Rufous pairs and I am refilling it more often now. We observed a pair of robins building a nest in our cedar last week, but perhaps they have moved on. Varied thrushes are also frequent visitors, as are Stellar's Jays and the ubiquitous crows. Our pair of Northern Flickers apparently has moved on. Our back yard is satisfyingly full of wildlife this spring.

Our two severe cold snaps last winter didn't cost us too much. A southern magnolia we planted last year didn't make it (one of two), and a couple of small shrubs and plants we added last year also were not established well enough to make it through. We replaced them this week with small Rhodys to match our other front blue/purple bloomers.