By Sally Roth (Contact)
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Judging from the flap in my mailbox, a lot of you have been noticing an increase in woodpecker activity lately.
Of course, some of that activity is pretty much impossible to overlook.
Help! A big brown woodpecker hammers on my metal chimney cap every single morning for hours. Even my neighbors are complaining.
That's exactly why the flicker — our only brown woodpecker — chose your chimney. The louder the better when it comes to springtime drumming.
If a male bird is eavesdropping, the message they get is, "Don't mess with me, I'm the biggest, baddest woodpecker around!"
If a female flicker hears the hammering, she just might think, "Wow, what a hunk," and come a little closer to check him out in person.
A flicker has been hammering on the back of my house below the roof. What is it doing?
When a woodpecker goes to work on your wood siding or eaves, it may simply be because it makes a good, resonant sound.
It could also be carving out a home. Or it may excavating bugs — a woodpecker is often an early warning sign of a pest problem. You may want to call in a pro to find out whether your house is being eaten from the inside out.
I was so proud of attracting a pileated woodpecker to my suet. But now he's been pounding on my cedar-sided house. My husband's ready to shoot him, but I told him I'd write to you and maybe you'd have another idea.
Slow down that itchy trigger finger: Harming a woodpecker is a federal offense, even if the bird is turning your house into hash.
You might have success with a low-tech trick I've used to shoo away pesky critters — a big, long-distance squirt gun. If you can consistently send a watery message for a few days, the bird may go elsewhere.
The only sure way to deter a determined woodpecker, whether it's a great big pileated or a little downy, is to put a barrier over the wood. You can buy commercial products online and at some stores, or you try fastening a piece of sheet metal over the area.
I have so many different kinds of woodpeckers at my feeders that they have to take turns. One with a red head took over my squirrel feeder. He flares out his wings and jabs at the squirrels, and now they don't dare come to eat their corn.
Our suet feeders, nut feeders, corncobs and even our sunflower seed trays and tubes are busy with all kinds of hammerheads these days: downies, hairies, red-bellieds, red-headeds, flickers, or even pileateds.
This is woodpecker nesting season, and the pairs are claiming breeding territories, which are usually smaller than winter feeding areas. Many of the birds that were roaming the woods all winter are now in our backyards.
Do you think woodpeckers would use a birdhouse?
You bet! Look for a tall box with a hole about 11/4-inch in diameter for downies and hairies; about 2 inches for red-bellieds, red-headeds, and flickers. Mount it at least 10 feet high, on a tree.
You'll find creative birdhouses in all shapes and sizes, as well as bird books signed by yours truly, at the 2nd annual "Habitat for the Birds," a silent auction on April 4 from 1-3 p.m. at Ribeyre Gym in New Harmony, Ind.
The fun event benefits the Enabling Garden at New Harmony Healthcare Center, where residents and anyone else that needs an accessible place to garden can get their hands in the raised beds.
Columnist Sally Roth can be reached at sallyrothcolumn@yahoo.com. Because of volume, responses to e-mails are not guaranteed.
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