On yet another very hot and humid summer morning, cicadas were singing so loudly it was a little hard to hear much of anything else, and at first it seemed there were no birds around but a few Blue Jays. Then the small, intimate chatter of Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees began to emerge from the background, and the peeps of a Northern Cardinal. An Eastern Bluebird warbled a blurry song. A Carolina Wren began to sing, too, more boldly and loudly. A White-breasted Nuthatch called a long string of nasal notes as it moved through the trees.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Summer Tanager began to sing, at first from down in the woods, then gradually the refrain came closer and closer, a rich, lilting song. A Brown-headed Nuthatch chattered its squeaky-dee<\/em> as it moved through the pines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then \u2013 I caught a glimpse of what I first thought was a Downy Woodpecker on the trunk of a nearby oak. When I took a closer look, a very long bill and a sharply defined head with something of an angular, rather arrogant look made me think again \u2013 it was a Hairy Woodpecker. For several minutes I watched as it explored the tree, in and out of the cover of leaves, up the trunk, out a branch here, and another there, and back down the trunk. It worked quietly, and I wished for just one good emphatic call \u2013 but no. But several times I caught some very nice views. A Hairy Woodpecker\u2019s black and white colors and patterns are very similar to those of a Downy Woodpecker, but it\u2019s larger; its shape is more slender and its posture more erect, with a proud, cleanly defined head and neat black-and-white striped face. The long, sharp bill was parted much of this time, except when it worked directly on the tree. I wondered if it was panting from the heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Downy Woodpeckers are very common around our yard and neighborhood, but we don\u2019t see or hear a Hairy Woodpecker nearly as often \u2013 so this was especially nice. And it was really fun for me to spot it and watch for several minutes. For the past several weeks I\u2019ve been listening to birds more often than watching, while I recovered from shoulder surgery. I\u2019ve only recently begun to use binoculars again. So this was especially nice in that way too \u2013 bird watching<\/em> again! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On yet another very hot and humid summer morning, cicadas were singing so loudly it was a little hard to hear much of anything else, and at first it seemed there were no birds around but a few Blue Jays. Then the small, intimate chatter of Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees began to emerge from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2569,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions\/2569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}