Sighting of a Site

Posted on April 24, 2025 by Tina

I’d heard the call when I was out and about in the back garden, but Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Melanerpes carolinus are common in my neighborhood and I didn’t pay much attention. After an extended session of woodpecker monologue, I looked up and sighted this cutey calling from a nesting site hole high up in my back neighbor’s tree.

In January or early February, I’d seen a male Red-belly hammering away, creating a nice little niche for a future family. Then the stinkin’, bullying European Starlings began harassing the would-be dad, eventually driving him off to some other tree. Of course, the starlings didn’t even settle in the tree; I’m sure they moved on, looking for some other hapless native bird to harass.

His head is red from just above his eyes, completely covering the back of his head. Female Red-bellies’ red begins toward the top of their heads and doesn’t extend quite so far down.

Such a pretty fella. I don’t know if there’s missus; I’ve only spied this guy in his well-rounded hole, calling for anyone who will listen. I hope he finds a compatible gal-pal and they raise a family; woodpeckers are particularly charming birds. This could be his second go-round in the family business, as Red-bellies produce between one and three broods each year.

It’s been a disappointing spring in my garden regarding observing birds and their family ways. A pair of Bewick’s wrens sang, chirped, and brought grass and twigs to a little bird house at my back patio, then abandoned that effort. I suspect the Red-shouldered Hawks that were interested in my tall Sycamore tree might have given the wrens doubt about the neighborhood. But in recent days one is continuing the work, so maybe a second brood is planned or a different pair of wrens are reconsidering the real estate now that the hawks have removed to another place?

The majestic Red-shouldered Hawks that swooped, called, and mated in every tree in the vicinity, eventually relinquished the lame nest they occupied in my Sycamore after several days of high winds. They stayed nearby though, choosing a new nesting site in a large Red Oak just around the corner. This morning, I was alerted to their presence by noisy Blue Jays in the luscious oak, loudly voicing their opposition to the hawks’ nesting site. A stately adult hawk perched on a branch near the nest, tricky to spot in the foliage–a formidable sentry. I’m glad these two hawks didn’t opt for a chickless, carefree lifestyle, as young adults will do. They’ll be excellent parents, to the concern and detriment of other birds, small mammals and reptiles in the neighborhood. Such is the circle of wildlife.

Our Screech owl box remained owl-less this year, the couple choosing instead a hole further down this same tree now hosting the Red-belly. Just last night, looking for the owls, I saw both parents and two fledglings! They made it easy for me to observe them, as they were on utility wires, rather than in the trees. The owlets were calling for food, parents obliged with snacks. I mentioned to them that they’re welcome to the rat who visits the pond area each night.

I’m glad I listened and sighted this woodpecker in his chosen site. I wish him all good luck with a mate and brood. There’s plenty of time in the season to rear more darling woodpeckers.

Red-bellied House Builder

Posted on March 2, 2021 by Tina

Cleaning-up from Texas’ recent snowpocalypse is on-going and eye-opening. Well over 90% of my garden is pruned back or will be soon. That being said, while I’m probably going to lose a few, most of my plants will return from their roots or leaf out from their limbs. Sadly, it will take a chunk of the growing season before there are choices for the pollinators and fruits-n-berries for the birds and mammals. The garden is resilient and demonstrated its worth in the face of extreme cold.

In my front garden, my non-native Arizona ash tree relieved itself of a large branch when the ice and snow became too much to bear.

I caught this photo as the temperature had warmed a bit, but before the snow and ice melted. It was five more days before it was pleasant enough to tackle the limb and its branches, cutting the material to bin-appropriate lengths and widths. I was grateful that little damage occurred to the Burford holly, where the tree mess landed. As an aside, during the snowy-icy days, Cedar Waxwings and Robins swooped in and devoured those berries; I’m tickled that an excellent food source was available for the hungry birds during the frigid days.

As we worked that Sunday morning, the Hub puzzled a fix for the metal bird bath which suffered a career-ending injury when the limb crashed down. Under the weight and power of the tree limb, the pedestal snapped in two pieces, the small bowl popped free. The pedestal isn’t fixable, so into recycling it goes, but I can easily hollow out a small area in the garden for the bowl to sit in comfortably. The birds, lizards, and toads will like that.

As we trimmed and tidied that first warm day and in the days since, we’ve enjoyed listing to and observing the nest building efforts of this male Red-bellied Woodpecker, Melanerpes carolinus.

His rhythmic tap tap tap has served as a percussion accompaniment to the pruning of our mushed and freeze-dried plants.

Dad-to-be woodpecker is annoyingly shy. I’ve had a tough time catching a photo of him at work; he flits away as soon as he’s sure I’m set for a shot, camera lens adjusted. But I’ve managed few photos, when he was too engrossed with designing the kids’ bedrooms to notice the weirdo below him.

The large limb which landed in the garden broke off from this perforated section of the tree.

Hmm–wonder why it broke so easily? Arizona ash trees are notoriously weak-wooded, but even less stable when a woodpecker adds its formidable beak work to the wood. We’ll keep a keen eye on this limb during the coming spring storms for potential problems; falling logs add nothing to a garden’s charm. I’ll need a consult from an arborist on removal of this section, but for now and the coming few months, we’ll leave it alone: baby woodpeckers will soon be in residence.

This storm was destructive in countless ways and distressingly, leadership in this state is lacking. As for my tiny plot of Texas, I’m saddened at what the deep freeze delivered to my garden and fret over the damage done. Even so, I welcome exposure to the garden’s bare bones. This sort of destruction makes clear poor plant choices or placement, and allows some re-thinking of the garden and its purpose. The garden will recover, in time, in one form or another.

The impacts on wildlife may be devastating, though urban wildlife are likely to fare better than their rural counterparts. Flora and fauna continue their lives: plants grow, flower and seed; animals grow, mate, parent. Like my Red-bellied Woodpecker buddy and his building of a nest to woo a mate and create a nursery for his offspring, there is meaning in continuity and hope in survival.

Daddy Duty Almost Done: Wildlife Wednesday, August 2020

Posted on August 5, 2020 by Tina

Spring is new life and verdant growth, but is also well behind us and with it, the boom of babies born. There are still some critters in offspring production: insects, rodents, sparrows, doves and others, I’m sure, who produce youngins’ year-round, or nearly so. But for many of my local wildlife, their baby-rearing days for this year are drawing to a close. Baby birds are no longer helpless chicks, but are at fledgling and hatch-year stages; almost, though not quite, independent. Some lessons are still imparted by dedicated parents, like this handsome daddy Red-bellied Woodpecker, Melanerpes carolinus.

Such a pretty woodpecker! His head is most definitely red, but it’s the blush on his belly which gives this interesting bird its common name.

As dad picks up a black-oiled sunflower, baby red-bellied waits patiently on the trunk of the near-by Oak tree.

C’mon Dad! I’m hungry!

I observed this sweet familial scene for about 15 minutes. Dad flew to a feeder–mostly the sunflower, sometime the peanut–grabbed a morsel, then zipped back to the tree. When the snack choice was a sunflower seed, he’d spend a minute working the seed-coat off by hammering it as it was secured in the crevice of the bark. I wonder how he’d learned–by experience or from his parents–that by placing the seed in the crevice, he could better work the seed without its falling on the ground? Finding an easy source of available food and preparing it for a meal would a skill dad would want to pass on to junior. Modeling is the best form of teaching!

It’s not yet clear if the fledgling is male or female, but there is the suggestion of rosiness on the back of baby’s head. Time will tell. Male Red-bellied red heads begin between their eyes and cover over the tops of their heads. Females’ red heads start toward the backs of their heads, leaving their sweet faces mostly non-red.

The youngster knows a treat is coming and inches closer in anticipation!

Yum!! Thanks, Daddy!

Woodpeckers are common feeder birds, but they eat a wide variety of foods: all kinds of insects, spiders, nuts from a variety of trees, and seeds from annual and perennial plants. According to Cornell’s page on Red-bellied Woodpeckers, they sometimes eat lizards, nestling birds, and small fish. I’ve watched as woodpeckers (Downy Woodpeckers, too) glean insects from the barks of trees, but I’ve never witnessed any munching on protein from higher-up along the food chain.

“Yes, Little One, you might someday enjoy the crunch of a lizard.”

I watched these two in my back garden as they hung out on my Red Oak tree, but commonly, I’ve seen Red-bellied Woodpeckers–mom, dad, kids–hitch themselves along the thick branches of my neighbor’s large front garden Arizona Ash tree. That tree now belongs to my SIL: different neighbor, same house and tree.

The ash is old and particularly weak-wooded. During a May storm, a major branch broke, landing in multiple pieces at the end of SIL’s driveway. It was rather dramatic! Thankfully, no one and nothing (except the branch) was damaged. Interestingly, the break occurred at an established Red-bellied Woodpecker nesting site. Especially in the last few years, I’d observed little red-heads hanging out from the hole that some dad started and some mom helped finish. This spring, before the break, bully European Starlings chased off the Red-bellied Woodpeckers, which was sad. In retrospect, I’m glad the Red-bellied babies weren’t in the nest when the storm came and the limb fell.

As neighbors stood around and marveled at the mess, recounting their own storm horror stories, I cast my eye on the portion that housed the woodpecker hole and nesting cavity. SIL was on-board with me taking it–for what, I wasn’t yet quite sure.

That piece of former woodpecker nest now sits in a garden just below the tree.

The hole, drilled through the thick bark by determined, hammer-beaked woodpeckers, is a door/window into the tree. The nest cavity was fairly roomy and the sides of the hole were completely smooth, an exemplar of fine crafting by woodpeckers.

At the storm-driven break, obviously weakened by the nesting of generations of Red-bellied Woodpeckers, I filled the former nest with potting soil after plugging the woodpecker hole with crushed granite. I popped in a stem of Ghost Plant, Graptopetalum paraguayense and the plant is doing well in its new home. I just need to water from time-to-time. Ahem.

I enjoy observing the excellent parenting skills of the various birds who visit my garden. For a while longer, I’ll watch the juveniles’ antics as they mature. Autumn isn’t too far in the future and the new generation will eventually leave, moving on to their own territory to find mates and continue the cycle.

What wild things did you see in your garden this past month? Please leave a link, if you’d like to share your garden’s wild ways. Happy wildlife gardening!