[Magdalen] Odd patrons at local eatery

[Grace Cangialosi]

I've had a Pileated hanging around near the house for about three weeks.  For some unaccountable reason, he spends a lot of time in the top of a large holly tree, eating the berries. This is quite a feat, because those little top branches can't really support him. So there's much scrabbling and flapping to keep his balance. The large maple on the other side of the house would seem to be much more hospitable, as there are nice holes in the dead branches, suet feeders and sunflower seed feeders. He will occasionally show up over there, but seems to prefer the holly tree. Maybe it's because there are two other species of woodpeckers that also nest in the maple.
And, of course, Woody Woodpecker was a Pileated!


> On Mar 31, 2016, at 1:20 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> This winter and spring the starling that thinks it's a finch has been a
> fairly constant visitor to the Café de los Pajaritos. I assume it's the
> same one. It brought a partner for awhile but has never brought others.
> 
> The last couple of days we've been visited by a pileated woodpecker who
> enjoys the suet feeder. This is a first. It's quite comical to see it bend
> itself around the feeder which is designed for birds a third its size. It
> was particularly funny today as the wind is blowing eight bells (in
> nautical parlance) which buffeted it about considerably and finally caused
> it to fall off, at which point the bird flew off in disgust. Probably a
> good thing there were no squirrels about as they would have been laughing
> their tails off (yes, they do!).