Don backed slowly into the house and woke me up to tell me about it. Suddenly wide awake, I stepped into my slippers and grabbed my camera. I flashed one shot from the doorway, took a few steps, and flashed another. As I moved closer, the beleaguered bird granted just one more portrait photo before flying silently into the darkness.
Our visitor a few days earlier had not been so quiet. The rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker had called me to investigate. At close range it sounded like a jackhammer on the front porch. To my relief, I found a downy woodpecker snatching goodies from a mud dauber's nest that we should have cleaned off after the first frost.
In the summer, mud daubers, a kind of wasp, build nests of mud and lay their eggs, then stuff the chambers with spiders that they have paralyzed. When the eggs hatch, the larva find their Big Macs already packaged and ready to eat. This time, however, the woodpecker had beaten them to the take-out window.
Meanwhile, from the stands,
a normally noisy bluejay watched silently
and was probably wishing he had called in his own order.
Oh well, an acorn would have to do.
and was probably wishing he had called in his own order.
Oh well, an acorn would have to do.
