More backyard excitement

Over the weekend we spent a lot of time on the back porch watching the birds. One morning after watching our regular visitor, the red-bellied woodpecker, I mentioned to Daniel how I'd love to see one of the pileated woodpeckers again. I was stunned when we saw one that same afternoon.

They are said to be the largest woodpecker in the US, about the size of a crow and they truly look prehistoric to me.

We first saw one ... and then two! They were hammering away at this tree and stuck around for a long time. I tried to take a video of them, but somehow the camera didn't cooperate, which was too bad as the wood chips were just flying from the tree!

We hear them a lot, but they are quite shy and usually stay way up in the tall pine trees around here and our house and we hardly ever get to see them.

They came really close to us, checking out our bird feeders. We figure they might be feeding their young.

I also found out that they mate for life, which I thought was so sweet, seeing those two together.

And then came the confusing part. Suddenly there were three! Really!! While they were all close to each other, I could not get them on the same photo.  We couldn't figure out why three of them would be hanging out together. Maybe it was a chick from last year? ~~ Ok, I just read about them some more and learned that the chicks have the same coloring as the adults right from the start. So, maybe they had one of the young with them. Although it did look pretty big... not sure. 

We haven't seen them since (this was only the third time we've seen them in our garden in six years), but what a treat that was!!

Even Winslow watched with us, but I think he wasn't quite as impressed as we were...

Do you any of you know why most of the woodpeckers here have similar coloring? Black, white, maybe some grey, but always bright red somewhere on their body? They aren't exactly camouflaged very well.

My blogging is going to be even more sporadic than normal - we are having a house guest with us until tomorrow and more arriving on Friday for the weekend. That means lots of fun outside and playing tourist, and less computer time! Hopefully, I'll take lots of beautiful photos to share with you!!

I hope you are all doing well and wish you a gorgeous Tuesday!!