This morning dawned rainy. The rain varied from a light drizzle to hard downpours most of the morning. About 11, during a brief lull, I decided to brave the elements and set up my camera near the feeders and under my semi-waterproof blind. My patience was tested during one heavy burst of rain, but I was eventually rewarded.<\/p>\n
During the roughly ninety minutes I observed our suet feeders this morning, they were visited by white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers and red-bellied wood peckers.<\/p>\n
There were no signs of last weeks hairy woodpecker juveniles… or, maybe I can not tell them apart from the adults at this point. However, I did observe both adult nuthatches and red-bellied woodpeckers feeding juveniles.<\/p>\n
I am unable to tell fledgling nuthatches from the adults by their physical traits.. Behaviorally, it is very easy to tell them apart… the juveniles sit by with their mouths wide open waiting for food to be stuffed in!<\/p>\n
As for the red-bellied woodpecker, I suspected that their might be a juvenile nearby as the adult made a number of short trips to the feeder, always leaving with a full mouth. On one of his trips outgoing trips, I was able to follow the adult\u00a0to a branch fairly high in a nearby tree where the juvenile was waiting.<\/p>\n
The total elapsed time for the three frame sequence… less than one\u00a0second.<\/p>\n
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Experimental video below! I have taken the three still photos shown above and combined them into a very short video. Sorry about the jitter! I was not planning a video when I made the photos and thus did not lock down the tripod… not that I would have had time!<\/p>\n