Woodpecker Feathers

Last week I saw a lot of birds one morning at our feeder (juncos, cardinals, nuthatches, chickadees, titmice), flitting between the trees in our yard (blue jays and robins) and back in the forest there were two kinds of woodpeckers: pileated and red-bellied. I next day I saw the red bellied woodpecker again and then it seemed like there were very few birds around at all for a few days. When I was working the yard yesterday – I found a pile of feathers. There must have been a predator in the area…probably some kind of hawk.

The pile was back in the pile of leaves I’ve creating at the edge of the forest. There were long feathers and fuzzy bits of down. The black and white pattern looked like a woodpecker and was probably the red-bellied woodpecker since a pileated woodpecker are mostly black rather than the black and white pattern.

I picked up some of the feathers to photograph. They were a little damaged so probably had been on the ground for a few days.

Yesterday, I noticed more birds at our feeder again. Maybe the predator has moved on.