SIB Reports

Shar and her good friend Gloria Wilson regularly do water aerobics at our POA Pool, next to our townhouse. On or about July 17th their attention was drawn to a partially dead birch tree, just outside the fence next to our entry road. What got their attention were bird calls, which they quickly identified as Red-bellied Woodpeckers, primarily because they sighted a male and female flying to a knot hole in the tree. Shar quickly solicited my services to try and photograph this orchestrated activity. Our objective to capture great photos quickly evolved into capturing a running story of the fledgling, soon to be named Woody Jr by Shar.

These first set of pictures show the male, full red on top, and female, partial red on top, regularly visiting the nest and entering and emerging. At this point in time, we didn’t know how many fledglings we were dealing with.

For about a week, mom and dad continued to bring food and tidy up the nest but they no longer entered it. You will see in the next series of pictures why. Woody Jr’s beak appeared for the first time indicating a good size fledgling in the nest.

The day after we saw the beak, Woody Jr started getting very curious about the world outside. Either wondering when its next meal is or how do I make my escape. Check out the picture with its tongue extended. A Red-bellied Woodpecker’s tongue is three times the length of its beak and wraps around its skull and has a barbed tip to aid in spearing and pulling insects out for ingestion.

As expected in very short order Woody Jr was out and away. On July 29th Shar headed out for a walk and saw the little one still observing the outside world. By the time I went out later that day to take more photos all that was left was an empty nest. We searched the surrounding area and although catching short glimpses of an adult Red-bellied were not able to see the fledgling. Our research indicates that it is not unusual for fledglings and adults to return to the nesting area so we continue to keep our eyes open.

Submitted and photos by: Alan and Shar Fink