Our new neighbors

Faulkner

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I came home from work one day this week and Mrs. Faulkner advised me we have some new neighbors doing some renovating on our property. She said they've been making a racket with construction noise most all day. She also said Daisy went to go check out what was going on but they ran her off.

Well then, I decided I'd get my camera and go take a look see for myself. By the time I found them it seemed the renovations were about complete. They had taken residence near the top of a big elm tree that had died from a lightning strike about 5 years ago. Last year we had a family of pileated woodpeckers make a den in that tree and raised a brood of youngun's. The new residents, who have burrowed out there own den, are red-bellied woodpeckers.


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When I was a kid we would have woodpeckers come and start pecking on the house, looking for bugs. Loud and obnoxious, it would echo through the house. It was my job to go shoot them off the side of the house with my BBgun or a .22. Those heads move alot and very quickly, so body shots were called for. The .22 worked well, but the BB gun not so much. If I had a pellet gun with some oomph to it, maybe. One of the benefits of living out in the sticks is being able to handle things yourself, rather than call a "Critter Gitter" type company. Hated to kill them but they were putting holes in the house.
Glad your visitors are much better behaved. You can limit your shooting to a camera.
 
Approximately how long does it take for them to construct their new abode?
Larry

About 3 to 5 days for a red-bellied woodpecker, depending on the density of the tree. That includes building the nest in the bottom. It has to be deep enough so that the parents can sit on the nest with only the top of their heads at the lip of the entrance so they can see out.

A pileated woodpecker can hollow theirs out in about a day and a half, and they're easy to find by the pile of shavings at the base of the tree. It has been my experience that if you can find a pileated woodpecker den one year, there is likely to be an owl in it the next year.

I try to allow large dead trees stay up as long as I can on my property so that the woodpeckers and owls have something to build in.
 
Not sure which but there are very similar looking Woodie's down here with a crest on top. I've never seen a nesting site but they will knock at soft spots, I guess to rouse some insects except for one guy who for a couple of years would hammer the street light one door down sounding like an old fashioned telephone.
Thanks for the pics.
 
We have a pair near our office that are making Swiss cheese out of a telephone pole!

My Dad used to tell me that when he was a kid, the utility company paid a bounty of $0.05 for each woodpecker that was brought to their office. Needless to say, during the depression, woodpeckers became endangered in his home town. The same one in which I grew up.
 
We used to get 5 different kinds of wood peckers at the house south of Pittsburgh, and every other type of bird. Put up the same setup down here, and we got some finches for a short while and a couple of cardinals... these Florida birds are dumb...and I am not happy.

Robert
 
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When I was a kid my parents bought a small ranch in the country. Had a house, barn & a cabin which became my mine. The Flicker wood pecker's had holed my cabin pretty well. All I had was a BB gun so Mom Loaned me her 22. SS. I really put a dent in the Flicker population.
 
Daisy and I went to check on the new neighbors today to see if the little ones were chirping in the den yet. Hopefully when they hatch I'll be able to get some pictures of feeding time.

Well, low and behold, they already had a visitor when we got there. Wasn't able to tell if it was a welcome visitor or not, but the situation seemed a little squirrely to me.

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Our previous home abutted a five acre wood. Woodpeckers aplenty. On occasion I would sit on my second story deck with binoculars and adult beverages and look and listen. Many times their drumming was rhythmic and I would try to match their meter to the time signatures of popular songs. For a musician that's chewing gum for the ears.

Like Gershwin they got rhythm.

Hear the Differing Drumbeats of Woodpeckers | Audubon
 
Woodpeckers and I have been at war for most of my life. Like LIHPSTER, my job as a kid was to cure the woodpecker problem. Buying my first piece of real estate, the few that survived followed me. Where I live now, I used to have a beautiful grove of mature Aspens just out the front window. Within 3 years, woodpeckers have killed every one of them. Then to add insult to injury, they started making holes in my house. Was gone for a week and I returned to a house with 3 large holes and birds nesting in my walls. Did I mention I hate woodpeckers?
 
Lihpster, were those woodpeckers called "flickers"? We get them here in southern Oregon, and they sure raise racket on the roofs. A bunch flew thru here last month, but are gone now. Must have been migrating to the north.
 
When I was young we had a smoke house by my Dad's bed room and every morning a woodpecker, a flicker I think would get on the peak, it was a tin roof with a tin cap and before we got up he would go to pecking on it and it made dad mad. It sounded like a machine pistol. Jeff
 
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