Woodpecker Feathers

Last week I saw a lot of birds one morning at our feeder (juncos, cardinals, nuthatches, chickadees, titmice), flitting between the trees in our yard (blue jays and robins) and back in the forest there were two kinds of woodpeckers: pileated and red-bellied. I next day I saw the red bellied woodpecker again and then it seemed like there were very few birds around at all for a few days. When I was working the yard yesterday – I found a pile of feathers. There must have been a predator in the area…probably some kind of hawk.

The pile was back in the pile of leaves I’ve creating at the edge of the forest. There were long feathers and fuzzy bits of down. The black and white pattern looked like a woodpecker and was probably the red-bellied woodpecker since a pileated woodpecker are mostly black rather than the black and white pattern.

I picked up some of the feathers to photograph. They were a little damaged so probably had been on the ground for a few days.

Yesterday, I noticed more birds at our feeder again. Maybe the predator has moved on.

Found Feathers

Back in June I posted about finding a lot of feathers on a walk around Centennial Lake. It probably resulted from a sad ending to the bird.

Most of the time I find only one feather at a time and feel happy about finding it - a little treasure. The blue jay feather I found in Texas is a good example. It was still in near pristine condition so I must have found it shortly after the bird lost it.

Feathers get bedraggled very quickly after they are lost. It’s an indicator of the effectiveness of the preening birds do.

This feather was in grass that had been recently mowed. I wondered if the feather had survived the mower or whether it had been already scruffy looking with the bird lost it.