Pileated Woodpecker

While I was taking pictures of the skunk cabbage at the edge of the wetland one day last week, a pileated woodpecker noticed me and started making a show of hopping up the trunk of a nearby tree.

Pretty soon all was quiet when the bird flew from the tree and disappeared.  But I had that eerie feeling that I was being watched,  Sure enough, what I first thought was the pointy stub of a branch on the side of a tree was actually the woodpecker peeking out of a hole.  I couldn't believe how lucky I was to stumble across this surprise -

That vertical gash on the right side of the trunk is the entrance to a cavity in the tree.  The combination of the low light of approaching dusk and my feeling that I needed to take a quick picture and back off meant I ended up with a disappointingly blurry shot of the opening.

I beat a hasty retreat because I really didn't want to disturb this bird, especially if it has eggs in that hollow.  As I left, the woodpecker flew out of its hole to keep an eye on me.

I discovered a very surprising fact about pileated woodpeckers on the National Audobon webpage devoted to them -

This species requires late successional stages of forest for habitat, as well as younger forests that have scattered, large, dead trees for food, nesting, and roosting. In younger forests they requires larger areas: 3,904 acres of virgin forest supports 3-6 pairs of Pileated Woodpeckers, while the same area of secondary forest will support just one pair. They also require larger trees with dead centers for roosting, where the bird excavates only the entrance hole.

Can it really be that each pair of woodpeckers requires that much territory?  I saw a similar statement on a website  Pilleated Woodpecker Central  - 

Territory size varies between 1000 and 4000 acres.  They will defend their territory year-round.

According to the second website, predators of the Pileated Woodpecker include the Red-tailed Hawk (a pair of which used to annually lay eggs in a large nest located in a neighboring tree), Barred Owls (which we have been hearing at night recently), weasels, and squirrels, among other animals.  These are just the predators mentioned that I know are sharing this same corner of the wetland.  

And these woodpeckers are monogamous.  As in they remain with the same mate for life, not just for a mating season.  That is cool.

Right after my chance discovery, our friend Jeff shared some beautiful pictures of a pileated woodpecker that visited his bird feeder located about two miles upstream from us.  Jeff gave me the go-ahead to share his photos here.

photo courtesy of Jeff S.

Photo courtesy of Jeff S.

Little Swamp Creek in April

Salmonberry blossom

Give us some warm, sunny, spring days, and suddenly everything along the stream comes alive!  And I breathe a sigh of relief each spring when I see life returning IN Little Swamp Creek itself, too.  

 Here are a couple of little 1.5-2"-long fish that were hanging out at different spots in the stream - 

I've seem some larger fish (maybe 4" long) zipping by, but they are too quick for me to identify.


We are starting to see the trails of caddisfly larvae along the bottom of the stream.  Here's a caddisfly larva conveniently perched for a photo (though it's hard to get a clear photo through rippling water...) -

I recently recalled that 10 years ago we used to see small groups of river eels hanging out in dips in the stream bed, but we haven't seen any recently.  Ha!  On the day I was taking update photos I happened to spot two eels swimming upstream.  Unfortunately all of my photos of those quick critters ended up being blurry, but you get the idea -

And suddenly our native plants are leafing out like crazy --

Red Currant

Nootka Rose

Twinberry

Indian Plum seedling  (love it when good seedlings show up instead of just weeds)

Red Osier Dogwood

Big Leaf Maple

  

All of the plants haven't leafed out yet, but already you can see what a thick, shady riparian zone we now have along the stream where there used to be some trees and mostly lawn.  This side is going into the fourth year since planting in spring of 2009 -

This shot is looking south into the yard.  This area was planted a year later than the other side, so it's beginning its third year.  I'll post another shot after the plants have all of their foliage -

I've been noticing heron in the planted area behind the fence -

I'll post photos of how the plants are doing in that area soon. 

A variety of trash shows up in the stream, the best being parts of old glass bottles.  While I was taking pictures of the caddisfly larva I looked over to see the sun shining on this chunk of green glass in the stream. Nice to see beauty in litter.

Foam keeps collecting on the upstream side of this large woody debris installed in the stream bank.   I've read that one cause of foam can be faulty septic systems upstream.  Or soap.  Since the presence of the foam is pretty constant, I'm thinking it's septic.  Yuck.

And this photo....

....is a teaser for a post to come.

Red-tail Hawks, Beavers and Stellar's Jay Origami

A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to get these shots of one of the neighborhood Red-tailed hawks as it was flying close to our rooftop, possibly checking out our chickens.  This is one of the pair that is using the nest in a large cottonwood tree in the wetland behind our fence (the area officially known as Kenmore's Wetland #3).  Its mate was soaring much higher up in the sky.

Back in February I noticed that something had been nibbling on the root of the giant willow tree next to the stream at the front of our yard.  I didn't find evidence on any other trees in our yard.

...until a couple of days ago when I discovered brand new damage on two quaking aspen trees further downstream in our yard -

and some branches chomped off of a willow -

I'm assuming it is a beaver, of course.  I wrapped the damaged aspens with chicken wire to a height of about 4 feet to hopefully prevent further damage.  

But today I noticed that there is new damage on a smaller trunk next to the others....

On a lighter note, a pair of house finches were foraging together in one of our raised beds -

You couldn't miss that little guy's bright red head.

This is a collage of the process I witnessed of a Stellar's Jay folding up a long strand of old onion or leek leaf that it scavenged from our vegetable garden -

A pair of jays has been building a nest somewhere next to our house in our neighbors' trees.  I hope to see their fledglings in our garden this summer - little jays are the cutest little things.  

A funny thing I noticed when putting together this collage is that the jay didn't only snag the plant matter for its nest. It is also is holding onto a plastic plant marker in the first two photos.  It must have grabbed that with a claw at the same time it flew off with the onion bit in its beak!

Kenmore Heron Rookery 2012

 

I spent a little time down at the Kenmore heron rookery in mid-February watching, listening (quite spellbound by the crazy noises being made) and taking pictures.  It appeared that the heron were in the midst of fixing up nests, showing off to potential mates and being very territorial.  I regret that I didn't make a sound recording while I was there, because in the times that I have been back there since I have not witnessed the same cacophony.

(Yep, that actually is a picture of herons mating...)

I had never seen heron flare/puff up their feathers before.  What a show!  Here are several pictures of varying degrees of showiness -

That sleek neck turns into quite the bottle brush!

I didn't realize that those long, dark head feathers would stand straight up like this.

And some other miscellaneous photos of the heron.  Too bad it was such a dark, gloomy day -

A Metro bus driver who was on his break at the Park and Ride told me that the babies make quite a racket.  So I still have a chance to record some crazy sounds down there.