bird suet

A colorful White-breasted Nuthatch

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This little guy has a beautiful song and quite a loud one at that. He likes to come to the feeders (really likes the suet) several times a day. He doesn’t stay long, regardless of how many other birds are around at the time. He likes to flit around from branch to branch, grabs some morsels and then off he goes.

The common name Nuthatch comes from a unique behavior. The primary diet is insects and large meaty nuts. They will take large nuts and acorns and jam them into the bark of trees. Then with their sharp bills they peck open the nuts, or “hatching” them.  They are also known for storing seeds and nuts in tree bark in preparation for winter.

Feeding frenzy, starling style

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Today the juvenile starlings were at it again: following parents around everywhere looking for the food handout. Today the youngsters figured out that they didn’t have to stay on the ground. Looking at the short video, you can see the gray colored youngsters in the tree, waiting for the parents to grab a piece of the suet and then feed them.

The din produced by the constant loud squawking of the youngsters was there all morning.

A pair of Pileated Woodpeckers

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If you’ve seen some of our previous posts, you’ll know that we have been enjoying feeding birds in our backyard. It is always fun to see different birds and to watch the antics of them all. But sometimes we just have to say “Wow! Look at those!”

That time came when a mating pair of Pileated Woodpeckers showed up at our tree with suet feeding stations. The male is on the left, female on the right. (We call them Woody and Wilma) We had seen the female before, but this was our first sighting of the male. And yes, to us, this was a thrilling event!

Ah, you might want to duck

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Here he comes, center of picture

Look closely, there is a starling who just left the suet feeder heading right towards the camera. The yellow beak is in the center of the black body, and the out stretched wings are very blurry. We see the starlings getting a beak full of suet and flying off to, we assume, their nests. According to one of our resources the young starlings should be leaving their nests anytime now.

Suet yourself

/ Roadtirementvintage / 17 Comments

Hanging on an empty corn cob on a large nail is our new backyard suet cage. Soon after the debut of this wildlife feeding device a resident squirrel showed up. He really wasn’t thrilled with this “not corn” thing.


He finally moved on, leaving the suet to the birds.