A DESIRABLE NEWCOMER

If there is one type of bird I've missed since moving from the North woods to city life, it's the woodpecker.  I'd had downy and hairy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, and even a few pileateds.  But in the city, I was beginning to think my habitat was no longer suited for woodpeckers.

Then, one day as I was outside with Gracie, I thought I heard the faint drumming sound a woodpecker makes.  I kept an eye out for one and a few days later, I saw a Downy Woodpecker drumming away on my lilac bush.

It was exciting to have this smallest of woodpeckers visiting.  I know they are drawn to dead wood, which made we wonder about the health of my aging lilac.

Then I saw the attraction.  In one of the recent windstorms, a branch was torn off my lilac, leaving this gaping hole.

And sure enough, the next day, the little Downy was enjoying whatever bugs were found within the hole.

I hoped to keep the Downy coming so I bought a suet feeder and hung it near the lilac bush.  Luckily, it has returned.  It pecks at the tree a few times, jumps to the feeder, extracts a hunk of suet, and then flies off into the large tree stand at the back of my property.  I wonder if there will be more woodpecker visitors joining the little Downy.