April 30, 2011

chez coco

flicker looks right

There has been a lot of romancing outside my window in the past week or so. Rumour has it that the best woodpecker restaurant in the neighbourhood is our suet feeder, so if the boys want to take the girls home with them, wining and dining on our back deck is the first order of business. I just can't keep up with customer demand for the house specialty. This Flicker has had his fill and is waiting while the wife hails a taxi.

pileated woodpecker and downy woodpecker 2

The big boys always get first seating. It's hard to spot, but there is a Downy Woodpecker waiting patiently in the bar (a.k.a. a maple tree) for this Pileated Woodpecker to decide what to tip me, thus freeing up a table. (The tip is always the same thing. :))

downy woodpecker male 2

That's better. At least the woodpeckers have the right balance points to make it work. The Steller's Jay mostly just tries to figure out how to get past the bouncer. It's a losing proposition most days, though, as the big guy at the door knows how rude and noisy Mr. Jay is. It's bad for business.

steller's jay going for the leap

Sometimes a foreigner stops by, but then chooses to bypass the mainstream fare and the burly dudes with the questionable social pedigrees who frequent the joint. This little Audubon's Warbler has decided to eat elsewhere.

audubon's warbler 1

And because no post about birds on this blog would be complete without a visit from the street people, here's a handsome devil. He's trying to be discreet by hiding behind the cherry blossoms, knowing that I will save the evening's leftovers and he'll get a free handout in the back alley when the Beautiful People have called it a night.

hidden in cherry blossoms

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brava!Brava!

Julie Zickefoose said...

Oh, this is just beyond beautiful. Sorry, but I like the street person best of all. How blessed you are to have flickers and pileateds at your feeder! And I'm delighted to have passed along the recipe. Thank you for the heads up, Andrea. Your work is glorious.

JZ

p said...

unbelievable photography andrea!!!!

Ponita in Real Life said...

Love the photos. That's one thing I will miss, now that i live in an apartment... the birds in the trees in the yard. There's aren't any trees planted here yet but I am sure there will be in near future! It's a brand new subdivision that I live in.

Hayden said...

omg, beautiful, andrea! And that flicker! What a charmer! I need more diversity here..... sigh.

Diana Miskell said...

Those bird photos are incredible, so sharp.

andrea said...

Thanks, all. It was lots of fun creating a post from this group of photos.

Angela Wales Rockett said...

Just looking at these shots again. Your photography is amazing!

bunnythreads said...

WOW!! These are Wonderful Visitors..Yes your Photography is really great-clear sharp... And are you even shooting thru a window ?? what kind of camera are you using? you are doing super on your photography!! Bravo.. Are you going to adapt these to your art work?

andrea said...

Thanks. I'm using a Nikon D70, an old one, and yes, they were shot through a window. Because of that I needed to do some post processing. And I have some new ones that I hope to use in my artwork.