bird feeder

Critter(s) of the Day: many bird visitors

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

There was one day in June when we got so many birds visiting at once. Especially goldfinches. It was really hard to choose photos for critter of the day!

My older brother had given my parents hanging bird feeders as gifts, years ago. The church one was for my mother, and the barn was for my late father. For some reason, my mom took the barn one with her when she moved off the farm, leaving the church one with my dad. She had been using is as a garden decoration, so when she wanted to take it in for the winter, but had no space for it, I had no problem agreeing when she asked me to bring it back to the farm.

This way, when one is empty, we can just switch them out.

The red barn matches the purple finches very well! 😀

Critter of the Day: hairy? Or downy?

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Okay, I’ve been having troubles with this one.

Here are some photos, taken in late June, of a fairly regular visitor to our feeding station.

I’ve identified this as a down woodpecker before, but I always try to double check when I post another photo, because I don’t trust my memory.

But when I did that, I saw this bird identified as both downy or hairy woodpeckers.

Either way, this would be a female. The males have a red splotch on the back of their heads.

Thankfully, on this day, we got some really good photos.

The most notable difference, I’ve read, is the beak. The down woodpecker has a very small beak. The hairy woodpecker has a much larger beak.

So based on this, this is a female hairy woodpecker.

Which means some of my past posts have identified it wrong.

😦