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On our old farm in southeast Ohio, we have a rather unusual means of landscaping the wide-open spaces of our yard. Eyeing the treeless expanse we inherited from the lawn-happy former owners of the property, we decided to take immediate action to make it more bird-friendly. On walks through our steep woods, we scouted for fallen trees that were small enough to drag up the hill to the house. My husband, Bill, went to work with a post-hole digger, sinking deep holes in the clay soil in which he could plant the dead snags. Within a week, dead trees sprouted all over the yard and old fields, and just as quickly, they were adorned with birds, who were obviously glad to have a place to perch and preen, and survey our work. Suet and peanut butter, smeared into crevices on the snags, were a welcome surprise for woodpeckers who came to check out these new perches, and snags made great places to hang seed, suet, and peanut feeders. The snags form a natural bridge from the woodland to our yard, giving the birds a place to perch and observe the feeders, watch for predators, and even excavate for the insects that inhabit dead wood. One by one, the woodpeckers ventured out of the surrounding forest into the terra incognita of our yard. Of the seven species of woodpeckers that can be found, either as residents or migrants, in our woods, only the lordly pileated has spurned our offerings.
Richard and Susan Day, naturalist/photographer friends in Alma, Illinois, have similarly "landscaped" their yard with dead trees. One of the biggest was occupied by a nesting pair of red-headed woodpeckers the first year. What a reward! If your neighbors look askance at your taste in plantings, invite them over and hand them a pair of binoculars to see the fruit of your labors. Chances are, they may ask you how to plant a snag or two of their own. And, it goes without saying, if you're lucky enough to own a woodlot, resist the urge to remove any standing dead wood, for this is the woodpecker's larder and bedroom.
Though water is a sure-fire attractant for almost all birds, you won't, except in some desert environs, find woodpeckers at the bird bath. Perhaps it is because their insect larva food is so juicy; perhaps they feel uncomfortable landing on a low, horizontal surface; perhaps they all know of rain-collecting knotholes or favorite streams deep in the forest, but woodpeckers aren't likely to drink or bathe with much frequency in our yards. You should still provide water for all the other feeder habitués; just don't expect to lure woodpeckers with it! They might make an exception for one of the newer artificial streams, molded of rock-like fiberglass and powered by a recirculating pump, or for one you construct yourself, with a waterproof liner and gravel bottom. Food, however, is a much more dependable lure for the clinging ones.
Of the offerings we can make, suet is number one on most woodpecker's lists. Suet is dense, hard white beef fat, usually sold in the meat department of grocery stores. It's no longer free or even cheap in most places; since so few grocery stores ever trim their own meat any more, they must order it, along with cuts of meat, from suppliers. If you're feeding a number of birds, as we are, it's a good idea to look for a meat-packing plant nearby, where it's likely to be less than half the cost it is in stores, fresher, and more reliably available in larger quantities.
Suet is best offered in cagelike feeders, that will prevent birds from hauling away the entire chunk at once. You can make a suet cage yourself from a folded piece of hardware cloth or purchase epoxy-coated wire cages made especially for suet. These can be wired to a tree trunk or suspended from hooks or tree branches, where they are less likely to be robbed by raccoons at night. When the 'coons really get going in mid-spring we're forced to take even our suspended feeders into the house every night.
A word of caution on suet-feeding: As the weather warms, suet, improperly fed, can do more harm than good to woodpeckers. If it's offered in a large chunk, and woodpecker feathers can easily come into contact with it as they cling to the feeder, melting suet can foul their plumage. When woodpeckers, especially downies, feed large quantities of suet to their young, it can clog the follicles and cause the feathers to fall out on their faces, all the way up around their eyes. Here's how to avoid such unsightly problems. If you choose to offer suet in summer, offer only very small chunks that will be consumed in a day or two. Downsize your suet feeder, so the woodpeckers' breast, belly, and tail feathers won't contact large chunks of melting suet. You might consider crumbling it into a shallow dish on your deck railing or platform feeder, so they can pick and choose pieces without clinging. Some people take their suet feeder in every night, pop it in a plastic bag, and put it in the freezer. This helps preserve the fat and has the added bonus of keeping the food away from raccoons.
You can render raw suet in the microwave, melting it to a liquid state, then pouring it into ice cube molds and freezing it. This makes it much less likely to melt. Commercial suet doughs, which often contain peanut butter and cornmeal, are a viable alternative, too, and they're much less greasy and likely to melt in the heat. Should you decide to dispense with hot-weather suet feeding altogether, there's a wonderful alternative-see the recipe in the Appendix.
Though they've been popular in Great Britain for many years, peanuts are only just hitting the North American bird feeding radar screen. They were so hard to find in bulk when I first became aware of them that I used to spring for jars of unsalted, roasted cocktail peanuts, an expensive but highly rewarding proposition. The first winter we put them out, in a home-made, cylindrical feeder of hardware cloth, two yellow-bellied sapsuckers fought over it all winter long, one of them constantly hanging on the feeder, jabbing at any chickadee or nuthatch that dared to steal a nut. Now, luckily, a local farm-supply store stocks peanut rejects, which are roasted, unsalted bits and chips that didn't make it into cocktail cans or candies. I've yet to find an affordable source for bulk raw peanuts, but those are the standard in Britain. Peanuts are a wonderful, fat-rich calorie source for birds all year round. Downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers find them irresistible, and lucky folks who have red-headed woodpeckers and sapsuckers at their feeders will see lots of action around the peanuts. As they grow in popularity, peanut feeders are becoming more widely available. These are cylinders of stainless steel square-mesh wire, capped by a heavy base and lid, and they're perfect for clinging woodpeckers, as well as titmice, chickadees, and nuthatches. Taking the woodpeckers' cue, we've got jays, goldfinches, cardinals, nuthatches, siskins, and even chipping and field sparrows vying for space on the peanut feeders.
As with other fat-rich foods, some care is in order when feeding peanuts in hot weather. Watch them closely, and as the weather warms, decrease the number of peanuts you put in the feeder each day, so that they are being cleaned up within a few days. Discard in the trash any that turn black, green, or look speckled; a deadly fungus that can kill birds within minutes can grow on wet peanuts. Empty and wash your feeder in hot soapy water every week or so. Should you find it hard to keep up with that, you might consider offering just a handful of peanuts each morning on a railing or in a shallow dish, to keep those woodpeckers coming.
Sunflower seed, that staple of feeding stations across North America, is accepted by a wide variety of woodpecker species, but perhaps most frequently by downy and red-bellied woodpeckers. Lacking the ability to crack seeds in their bills, like finches, or by hammering them between their toes, like jays and chickadees, woodpeckers are forced to take seeds to a nearby crevice, wedge them in, and pound them open. This can be a time-consuming proposition for a red-bellied woodpecker, and you may wonder if a single sunflower seed is worth the flight to the cracking anvil and back to the feeder. Hulled sunflower seeds, while expensive, are readily accepted by woodpeckers, as well as any other bird that likes seed. Failing that, most woodpeckers gladly switch to suet and peanuts as soon as they are offered.
Woodpeckers readily eat fruits and drink nectar from flowers and feeders. Halved sections of any citrus fruit or melon are eagerly eaten by woodpeckers, especially in southern locales. Grapes, raisins, apples, bananas, and other fruits will also be consumed. To make it easier for woodpeckers to get at nectar, offer it in a shallow dish on a platform feeder.
Being adaptable, agile birds, woodpeckers are not picky about the types of feeders they will accept; in fact, they're able to negotiate just about any type, from globe to tube, platform to hopper. They will feel most comfortable, however, if they're able to cling vertically to the feeder; hence you will see them selecting food from cylindrical feeders, or those that are affixed to upright supports, such as posts or trees. The need for keeping our suet feeder away from the reaching fingers of raccoons has forced us to suspend it from a thin, cast-iron shepherd's crook in the middle of our lawn; it swings freely, and would seem to be a tough place to perch, but downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers fly right to it, merrily swinging and twirling as they fill their crops with fat.
Copyright © 2000 Bird Watcher's Digest. All rights reserved.
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