WoodpeckerCam

This past week the garden has been full of woodpeckers and there is nearly always one on the feeder.  To save me having to spend too much time trying to catch the right moment I set up a trail camera to watch them.  Eventually it picked up good examples of an adult feeding a youngster.

On the next video a jay has jumped up to have a look around (it is usually on the ground collecting fallen peanut chips). The woodpecker is wary and stops feeding to keep an eye on the jay.  You can hear a young woodpecker calling for food in the background.

 

The videos above were recorded on a Browning trail camera with a +1.25 dioptre lens, giving good focus on the fence post (0.9m away) and the feeder (2m away).  I also tried the Wingscapes BirdCam Pro.  Although this has an adjustable focus and was developed and marketed for taking video of "wildlife in your backyard" it doesn't do as well.  It can't cope as well with the bright/dark contrast and is generally less clear at this range.  The sound is also quite muted on this camera.  It did, however, pick up a few interesting clips.  Here is another example of an adult feeding a fledgling. You can see the problem with getting the young bird in the right place.

 

And here a youngster is fed by its father on the feeder.  It returns to the feeder a moment before a female lands on the other side.  This is not the mother and she gives it a swipe to knock it off.  The young bird returns to the fence post to see what went wrong and to think about what to do next.

 

A lot of that goes on.  There is competition between adults for access to the food, and between fledglings which often take a swipe at each other.  I have only occasionally seen an adult obviously accompanied by two youngsters at the same time and in that case they seem to get on well with each other.  Otherwise it is every woodpecker for himself.  To cope with the extra demand I have put up another peanut feeder.

Within the next week all the fledglings will be able to feed themselves so there will be less interest in the video and photography and I'll be able to concentrate on other things.  Fox cubs perhaps?