We Call Him Baldy

This is just going to be a short, little fun post because I’m seriously tired of talking bout the ‘rona.

We are right in the middle of baby bird season around here. Every day we watch our feeders and hear the cheeping of a young bird waiting for the parent to come back with food. If I haven’t mentioned the pileated woodpeckers, that was a site to see. It is funny because the young ones will sometimes even perch on the feeders but don’t yet recognize that the food is easily available and accessible. Guess it is easier to just squawk and be fed rather than trying to figure it out on your own.

Sometimes it is hard to tell the young ones except that they are the ones getting food stuffed into them. In some cases, it is easier. Young cardinals have black beaks. Shown above is the red bellied woodpecker. The adults have the bright red heads while juveniles start out all grey. We have a young one of these around the house. He has moved away from the parents and is now visiting feeders on his own. We’ve taken to calling him Baldy because the grey head just looks so different. Yes, we sometimes name the animals that live around us. It’s what we do.

The worst young ones are the hawks. At some point, the parents seem to just up and leave them and you’ll hear the young ones screeching as loud as they can waiting for food that won’t show up. I know they eventually figure it out on their own but the screeching can be a bit hard to take. Sometimes it attracts a flock of blue jays who then mob the hawk trying to make it go away. I don’t think the young ones really know what to do about that.

Since we are not yet fully immersing ourselves back into society, the birds do make for a nice distraction.