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A LEWIS'S WOODPECKER perched on a power pole at the
corner of Shadow Valley Drive and Fillmore Ave in Ogden/Weber County this
afternoon. This pole served as the winter pantry of a Lewis's
Woodpecker until mid-May, and then the bird was gone for the
summer. A Lewis's also spent the winter of 2002-2003 in the same
vicinity. I choose to believe it's the same one.
Today's woodpecker wasted no time in
stocking the pantry. Since the cracks in the pole were hollowed
out last year, there's less work to do. The bird
flew to a backyard thick with scrub oak and returned with acorns
twice. The first time, he or she pounded the acorn into a crack and
eventually discarded the shell to the grass below. The second time, the
woodpecker transported an acorn with green leafy twig still attached.
As the pounding ensued, the twig was quickly snipped off and dropped to the base
of the pole. Then the shell suffered the same fate. The
woodpecker rearranged its cache a few times and I concluded that it's going
to stick around. Reply for directions.
Kris
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