Goooood news!!

The red-bellied woodpecker is back!!! Not the adult male or female that we have been seeing regularly throughout the fall and winter...but a baby!!! I have posted before that I was worried about them since it had been so long since we had seen either of the pair. But yesterday afternoon, Dave spotted the baby out on the tree trunk. He or she hardly has any colouring, so it would have been easy to miss. The baby was busy checking out the various feeders






and even spent some time checking out the nesting box.



So we now know there was a successful nest- at least one. Maybe the parents are busy with the other babies right now. They can lay anywhere between 3 and 8 eggs and the average is 4-5. We'll be keeping an eye out for the parents and any other babies. They nest in May and June, so if they started a bit late, then it makes sense for us to see the first baby of the season just now.

These birds face serious competition from starlings for nesting sites in mature trees, so again we see a native population threatened by the starlings. In fact, the nesting box this bird was checking out had been frequented by starlings throughout the spring. Dave kept checking the nesting box and removed the nests the starlings built at least three times. Of course when not everyone is vigilant over the starlings, they are able to find another place to nest and our yard has been frequented by the noisy starling babies this summer as well.