Acorn Woodpeckers

Patty is always showing me where there’s bird activity going on in the yard.  He’s always pointing something back there, or, if he gets frustrated I guess, barking up at something in a tree.  Most often it’s a squirrel but the other day it was a woodpecker.

To be precise it was a whole community.  According to my birding field guides, groups of Acorn Woodpeckers band together to build nests and even hatch and raise the chicks.

My recent experience confirms that they are an industrious though raucous lot.  They appear to be working quite hard at hollowing out an old dead oak trunk but my goodness they talk a lot while they work.