Peeping Red-Bellied Woodpecker

It's been a busy time for me lately. The good thing is that part of that time has been taken up watching animals and other related things. I told you a short while back that I saw the red-bellied woodpecker I was watching fly into its hole. Well, this time I have something even better!

Yup, that's him poking his head out! he seems to be clearing his nest out. And yes I say he. I believe it is a male because of the amount of red color on the top of his head. Females have red too, but they don't have as much toward the front.

For red-bellied woodpeckers, both males and females tend the nests. So there is a maybe female too, but for now we have a male. Maybe this male makes so much noise because he is trying to attract a female with his fancy new home. He makes a lot of noise, but I haven't been able to capture that yet.

I didn't even know I was getting some of these pictures of him until I got home! I was just blindly clicking away when I got them! That shows how active this little guy has been up there. Others were completely known to me though.

And now I have a brand new episode of Rat TV for you! It's not the best video ever made though, because none of mine ever are, but it shows this little woodpecker doing what he likes to do best. The beginning shows him spitting debris out of the nest. Much of the background sound is a large group of nearby frogs.

This piece of bark he is clinging to is actually not even attached to the tree where he is. It's attached somewhere below. In the video you can slightly see it swaying in the breeze. I wondered at the time why he wasn't pecking. He was just clinging there.

So there you have it! I think they call these birds red-bellied woodpeckers because red-headed is already taken. Their bellies can look a little pink at times, but red is not what I'd call them.

As I said above, I've been very busy. I just wrote the last episode of my fictional story of the boy and the demon over at my Rat Tales blog. I think this last episode is probably the best thing I've ever written so far. The story is best read from start to finish, but there is no harm reading any episode you want. The whole short story is really the longest single story I've ever written. I'm working my way up to my epic masterpiece about some mischievous squirrels. ;)

I'll be back soon with hopefully more time.


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