FJ3: Bird interactions and Pileated Woodpecker

Red Rocks Park, VT 03/13/2022
Start: 3:25 pm End: 4:30 pm
Clear Skies with Slight Clouds high 20s to 30s
At the trailhead there wasn't much going on, I expect due to high foot traffic scaring off birds. To avoid interruption, I found a more secluded spot to sit and see what would come around. After some time, I could hear some "here Petey"s from nearby Black-capped Chickadees and a distant drum. I practiced some 'pishing' and to my surprise it seemed to bring in a group of four Chickadees from further off. As they fluttered from branch to branch, I could see that their underbellies were a bit dirty, seemingly from the prior warm days making the surroundings a bit muddier. Two Chickadees in particular tended to stay together, one would move, sometimes give off a little call and the other would catch up and they would continue to forage. As far as the 'pishing' goes I believe it has something to do with curiosity or perhaps it sounds like some sort of insect or something that indicates food. These Chickadees were searching for food, foraging at this time, they were active and seemed to be thorough in their search.
After I've seen the motions of the Chickadees, I decided to look for something a bit more uncommon, on my walk back to the trailhead I heard some loud knocking and suspected a Pileated Woodpecker, after gauging its directions and distance I decided to look for it and after some looking, I spotted it up in a dead tree. It would stay in one spot and look back and forth a couple times and drum. The looking around made me wonder if it was looking to communicate with conspecifics by drumming or perhaps it was trying to stay weary of threats while foraging.

Posted on March 13, 2022 09:55 PM by