I see I forgot a couple of things in my last post.
Also ubiquitous are the Stellar’s jays. As I think I’ve noted before, they are particularly bright and beautiful this year. They are also particularly friendly, and they hang out around the house in ways they have not done in the past.
I’m not a great fan of jays. They raid other birds’ nests, make a lot of noise, and are generally obnoxious. But for some reason, I’m enjoying ours this year.
But more than that, in my last post I dealt entirely with the visual.
I forgot to mention the pileated woodpecker that is driving us all nuts. He seems to stay across the river. But he’s been laughing at some particularly raucous joke almost non-stop for two days. He moves up and down the terrain, but he keeps laughing. Remember Woody Woodpecker? He sounds just like that. It’s amusing at 3 p.m., not so great at 6 a.m.
While I’m talking about sound, I forgot to mention the baby red-tailed hawks. They’re flying, and you can’t help but notice. They fly along with this sound that is either “help me, help me” or “look at me, see what I’ve learned to do.” Either way, it’s interesting.
Marianne's Virtual Salon 
May 13, 2007 at 6:51 pm |
If it didn’t seem to be your actual computer I would have specualted that maybe the woodpecker is having a go at your phone line.
May 14, 2007 at 1:14 am |
The woodpeckers knock their brains out on the metal plates on the telephone poles, but my phone line is just fine, thank you. For the moment, my computer seems to be also fine.
May 14, 2007 at 9:51 pm |
Walking the dogs home from mother-in-law’s brunch (the ladies went off on a confab of their own; I exercised the hounds) I heard that singular rat-a-tat-tat off in the distance. I’ve heard this woodpecker several times lately in the neighborhood, and always look around at older or dying trees to find him, but hadn’t spotted him until yesterday.
He wasn’t one of the acorn woodpeckers I’ve seen here in CA, either. One of the ladderbacked species, but I don’t know which one — probably a downy or hairy. I’d have stayed to watch a bit more to figure out his size (diagnostic) but Edie and Ernie had other ideas on how to spend their time out and about from the house.
As they had waited patiently in the backseat of the car while we dined, maintaining their pace on a walk was the least I could do.
I agree with you about steller’s jays. Jays in general are pretty opportunistic. I’ve had a few feuding in our backyard lately, one using our deck as his command post–they are flashy.
I like pileateds. Haven’t seen one for years. I’m quietly skeptical that anyone actually saw an ivory-billed in the Arkansas riparian woods. They got no photo, and I wonder if it couldn’t have been a mutation of some sort that made it look like an ivory-billed.
At any rate, the lack of a subsequent sighting in spite of *intense* interest makes me skeptical. Hope my skepticism is unfounded.
May 15, 2007 at 1:16 am |
We have a lot of the pileated variety. You see them only occasionally, but as I think I noted, hear them frequently, sometimes more than you want. They also have a different sound when feeding. It’s much more serious than the smaller woodpeckers, can sound like someone building.