Two birdfeeders hang from the deck of my house in the woods, a waystation for locals and migrants alike. They are a locus of activity — except when I forget to refill them. That happened again last month. I grew too distracted by the daily feeding and maintenance of two small humans, both of whom must be fed and bathed and clothed and entertained and educated and not-always-successfully prevented from jumping off furniture.
My small humans love to watch the birdfeeders and even help refill them, one small fistful of seed at a time, but they don’t always have time for such mundane household tasks. So, for two weeks, the feeders hung empty and quiet, the feathered action instead dispersed throughout the trees overhead.
But long after the chickadees and nuthatches had given up, a couple of red-bellied woodpeckers continued to drop by. The red-belly is one of my favorites, a bird that belies its name, with just the barest blush of pink on its belly and a startlingly bright red head. There were two of them, a female and a male, identifiable by the different-sized patches of red on their head and neck. And they were clearly a pair. Rather than fighting, they took turns: one dangling from the bottom of the feeder, its long beak digging out the few seeds that remained, while the other hammered away at the branches of a nearby chestnut oak.
When I finally refilled the feeders last week, the chunky red-bellies were my first visitors. Back and forth they flew from their chestnut tree, back and forth, chugging seed as fast as they could. They seemed hungrier than normal but it took me a couple of days to figure out why. Continue reading
