Chromium's Backyard Birds #5 - Woodpeckers in da House

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(Edited)

Hello Everyone and Welcome to Feathered Friends

Today I have some images of a couple of new visitors to the yard.
I noticed them a wile back and was able to collect many images over the last couple weeks.
These images are from the first day I spotted them around the 13th of this month.
ENJOY!


I was just sittig down and cracking open a tasty beverage when something big hit the Suet feeder and spinning round and round was this beauty.
Spilled my beverage in the process.


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This is a Northern Red Shafted Flicker(Woodpecker)


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As it spins around it grabs chunks of the suet and gobbles it down.


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After ridding the suet merry go round for a bit it drops to the ground and begins poking around the grass for bugs.


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Flickers are not like most other Woodpeckers as they don't spend much time banging on trees, they spend most of their time on the ground hunting beatles, ants and other insects although they do nest and roost in trees.
So if you see one banging on a tree it's building a nest.


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This one methodically worked that little hillside before moving up to the cement area.


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Hey wait.... Is that thing comming up here???
and does it eat sunflower seeds ???..... or squirrels that eat sunflowerseeds???


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Let me just check this human out for a second... He's acting a little suspicious O.o


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Ok.... everything looks legit, time to check out the cracks for some tasty bugs.


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I stil keeping my eye on you though O.o
Notice squirrel in background


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It worked the cracks in the cement (there are lots) for a good little wile so I just snapped away.


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After a bit it was ... Hey, I bet there's some bugs up there.


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Then jumped to the side of the brick planter and gave it a good look and also keeping a wary eye on me as I'm moving in as close as I can .


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Ok that's far enough buddy, your making me a little nervous here....
Weirdo


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It flew the coop as I was focusing in for a tighter shot and missed the flyoff.



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It flew back about 10 minutes later and had a little surprise.
Meet Jr.


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This is a juvinile Flicker and it was keeping a low profile a short distance from Mom.


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It will sit there still as can be untill Mom finds something to eat the it springs over close and sings for food.


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It was hard to capture her putting food into Jr.'s mouth, it happens like lightning.


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Just missed it in the image above but I did manage to get them in the same frame with both in focus.... no easy task wit the depth of feild I'm working with.


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Looks like the weirdo is getting too close again and they bail over to the next yard.


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Meanwile at the suet feeder....
...<,<...WHAT ?!?...>,>

The Flicker family came back almost each day for the last couple weeks and gave me a few more chances to image these wounderful birds.
Can you imagin how many bugs she has to catch to fill this monster sized child up ?
Thanks for dropping by and...
Buzz on over to the Feathered Friends community and join
@melinda010100
@nelinoeva
@barbara-orenya
and the rest of the gang at Feathered Friends for all your feathered odds and ends.


Yes, got the flyoff =)

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20 comments
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Manually curated by EwkaW from the @qurator Team. Keep up the good work!

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Hahaha so fun the follow it everywhere, and what a surprise there was a juvenile.
Beautiful captures @chromiumone 😁😎
Love the ones from the young one on the angled grass bit. Pretty cool.
Have a wonderful day today 👋🏻 Enjoy.

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Thanks @littlebee4 and yes I was happy to see the little one.
She brought it here serveral times a day for a couple weeks teaching it how to hunt. Haven't seen them much this week but the Mom was making Jr. hunt and eat itself the last couple times so it's ready to go it on it's own now probably.

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Aaawww that is just the cutest thing to see evolve 🥰😊
Thanks for sharing this @chromiumone
Have a wonderful Sunday!

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I guess you did not cry over the spilt beverage. 😉
Having such visitors is a treat, is it not? And the bandit squirrel too.
Wonderful images. I love to learn about the woodpeckers in other places. They differ than the ones we've got here.

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Yeah the Squirrel family visits several times a day, I put out a small feeder full of sunflower seeds for them and they leave the other feeders alone for the most part.

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I love the story you told with those :) And the squirrel was hilarious 🤣

This post has been upvoted by the VYB Curation Project

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Thanks @wrestlingdesires always appreciated =)
The squirrels are around a lot, they don't even run from me unless I get close enough to touch them. Same with the Sparrows, a couple of them have landed on me wile refilling the seeds lol.

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That's awesome :) I recently found a fun way to keep squirrels happy and busy, by the way 🙌 Simply rig up a makeshift feeder around an old jar of peanut butter with the lid off!

!PIZZA !ALIVE !LOL

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Yeah I ended up setting up a feeder for the squirrels, a few big spoon fulls and some sunflower seeds will keep them happy for days.

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You sure do get the most amazingly upclose photos. They are really a joy to look at. Really love the ones on the suit feeder.... well... the ones with the birds.

Squirrels ! feeder raiders ! Good photo though.

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Hello @jacey.boldart, I use the Sigma 150 mm to 600 mm telephoto lens mostly these days. It lets me reach out a fair distance and bring it in close.
I'm around 30 feet away for the Flicker shots.

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Awesome shots! That glass is paying nice dividends. Yeah those squirrels learn the ropes quickly when it comes to getting into the suet feeders! You can go broke keeping them in sunflower seeds and suet!

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Yeah the glass was worth every penny and then some. Glad I also got the USB docking station that allows me to flash updated bios to the lens and instal custom programing of my own on the two custom settings switches.
The squirrels can sometimes be a bit pesty at times but I don't really mind them visiting the feeders as they are very entertaining to watch and image. Plus since I've set up their own little feeding area they stoped raiding the seed feeder and have at the suet feeder much less. The squirrels really like peanut butter and a couple table spoons full and a half cup of sunflower seeds keep them busy for days.

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