Photos

Red-headed Woodpeckers are nature’s show birds

/ Roadtirementvintage / 15 Comments

Today was a little wild with all the new young starlings leaving their nests, and their apparent feeding frenzy with the adults.

Then suddenly Sher and I witnessed the arrival of one of the most striking birds in North America. The Red-headed Woodpecker has beautiful crimson head plumage accompanied by a pure white body and wings that are half white and half ink black. These birds are striking both at rest and in flight. This one was kind enough to stick around on the feeder long enough for the capture you see above.

Mom, Dad, get back here!

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We noticed a behavior in starlings that we had not seen before. Adult starlings were moving through the yard, doing their normal grazing thing.

Some adult feathers are beginning to show on the backs of these two starling juveniles

What was different was the sight of juvenile starlings, one or two per adult, staying amazingly close. Every time the adult moved, the juvenile stayed right with the adult. We watched as the adult would grab a worm or grub an give it to the youngster. When the adult flew away the youngster would squawk and carry on very loudly. This parent/young interaction went on for minutes at a time.

A pair of Pileated Woodpeckers

/ Roadtirementvintage / 21 Comments

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.

A flash of red on final approach

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A beautiful splash of red

It’s always fun to see a new (to us) species coming to our backyard and our feeders. We are slowly putting together a pretty decent list of the birds we have seen. Yesterday a flash of red, white and black caught our eye. We first saw the Rose-breasted Grosbeak sitting on a swing frame.

Coming in for a landing

It wasn’t long before a second Grosbeak joined in on the feeding fun. They both found the glass shelf feeder and shared a meal together. These colorful birds are always fun to see and hear.

Family life on the river bank

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Young goslings under watchful eyes

It was a pretty day so we went on a drive to a local park. This park has a river running through it and is home to lots of waterfowl. We were treated to an idyllic scene of an adult goose with 3 very young goslings poking around on the river bank. White ducks and Mallards were in the background enjoying the day.

A return to Olive Garden

/ Roadtirementvintage / 22 Comments

Sher and I have talking about when we could get back to an Olive Garden restaurant. Today was that day. Our closest Olive Garden is across from the Greenwood Park Mall, about a half an hour from our place.

Delicious salad with fresh grated cheese.

Strawberry margarita and hot fresh breadsticks.

Minestrone (vegetarian) soup vegetables and seashell pasta

Chicken & Gnocchi soup with roasted chicken, traditional Italian dumplings and spinach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We timed our trip to arrive at the restaurant at 2:30 PM, which made us eligible for the all you can eat soup, salad and breadstick lunch deal. (offered M-F 11 to 3 for just $7.99 per person). Sher enjoyed a frozen strawberry margarita while I chose the peach iced tea. Delicious! We certainly took advantage of this deal: I had 2 1/2 bowls of soup with salad and breadsticks. We brought home some salad and breadsticks.

We felt very safe dining at this Olive Garden. Table spacing was in evidence, all staff and most patrons wore masks, and there were hand sanitizer stations in several locations within the facility.  All in all, we had a great lunch date!

I see you!

/ Roadtirementvintage / 12 Comments

Sometimes there are birds that just stand out when you see them. Here is one:

This interesting gaze belongs to a White-crowned Sparrow. Below are a couple more images of the same bird after he flitted about a bit.

 

 

 

 

This is a direct quote from the allaboutbirds.org website “Scientists interested in movement and energetics have discovered that White-crowned Sparrows can run on a treadmill at a pace of about one-third of a mile an hour without tiring out.” I can’t imagine any self respecting bird allowing itself to be run on a treadmill.

First glance ID was wrong

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When I first spotted this woodpecker I thought it was a Male Northern Flicker. With our camera I captured this image of the pretty woodpecker next to the suet feeder.

Turns out this is a female Red-bellied Woodpecker. The female is distinguished from the male in the red nape vs. the male with a red cap. This bird can stick its sticky saliva covered barbed tongue a full 2 inches past the tip of the beak, letting it successfully catch food deep in crevices.