New neighbor!

Yesterday I had a great reason to be late for work: there was a red-headed woodpecker on my porch!

Rain poured on my house, making his initial hammering sounds seem faint, but when he hammered his little beak into a wooden beam on my porch, I definitely heard him!

I immediately stopped what I was doing and ran to get my camera. I knew he was on my porch. I'm really lucky that my porch is just outside my bedroom window and that it's the same level as my window.

The woodpecker is a little too big for this feeder (usually the biggest birds that fit here are cardinals, bluejays, and nuthatches), but he slid himself under the shield and snacked on some seeds.

This second photo is kind of hilarious because there are other birds--my usual neighbors--trying to fly up into the feeder, only to be greeted by this huge woodpecker. Here you'll see a gathering of a few house finches and a chickadee.

I really enjoyed watching the woodpecker on my porch. The drama that unfolds between the birds that live in my yard is astounding. The summer addition of a red-headed woodpecker should be interesting, provided I keep supplying the food he likes.