The Art of Feeding Woodpeckers

There was a time you had to ask for suet at the meat counter. Now there is usually a place where the packages of fat sit wrapped up next to the ground hamburger and steaks. You have to pay for this convenience as well, so get a tasty looking piece if you can, thick and solid and pure white the way the birds like it.

A homemade basket of chicken wire just won't do any more either. A sturdy vinyl-covered wire cage is now available at the seed store. Pick one where the chain wraps around the narrow sides so you can flip the top and slip the slice of suet in easily and cleanly.

There is an art to feeding woodpeckers, who do not often stoop to simple vegetable matter. They go right for the tastiest stuff, that delicious ingredient that we save for a rare dessert. We remove it from ordinary food, settling for low fat or no fat. The woodpeckers are macho birds, taking only fat, and taking it straight and clean.

The flight of the woodpecker is no nonsense as well, straight as a thrown spear, flicking those wings out just enough to keep it arrowing to its destination. No dinky twig perch for this bird, it goes right for the trunk or main branches, and somehow twists it body at the last instant so its bill is not impaled into the bark. Instead the bird is glued vertically to the side of the tree, the head poised to strike.

Every kid would love to be able to climb a tree this way, simply grasping on and hiking up or down the trunk, tail pressed below to steady you and hands free for better things. Look ma, no hands. Oh, to have wings to fly from tree to tree, never touching the pedestrian earth.

If you hang that cage of suet in your back yard, you can enjoy this star performer every day. Like all my feeders, I hang the suet from a long wire that is strung in the open between tree and house. You could nail it against the side of the tree if you are not bothered by raccoons.

The woodpeckers usually come one at a time, though there could be as many as five of the small downies at once. Then they chase each other up and down the tree, the subordinate bird switching from one branch to another, hoping its tormenter will tire of the game.

Nine out of ten times the bird is either a downy or hairy woodpecker, both with white undersides and black backs with a wide white stripe down the middle. Only the male sports the small red spot on the back of the noggin. The downy is much smaller than the hairy, with a diminutive bill, a tiny dagger compared to the spear point of the hairy.

A woodpecker always announces its arrival with noisy wings. A single bird will sound as loud as a small flock of any other species, the powerful pinions beating the air in such a way as to produce a distinctive thumping noise. Sometimes they will add the sharp single 'pik' note or even the longer series of notes in a musical rattle. The drum tap on a loose bit of bark is reserved for Spring and Summer.

After a slight pause of caution, the bird takes a great leap and glides to the suet holder. Then it pokes at the stuff, testing the texture while still looking around for the ambushing hawk or an approaching rival. Unfortunately, the challenge is often from a starling, and the woodpecker gives way before this aggressive blackbird with an oversized bill and short tail.

It is bad enough when three or four starlings come to rip apart the suet despite having to balance on the small holder. This year the crow has learned the same trick, and now comes to alight briefly with flailing wings, but still managing to grab a mouthful of tasty fat, gobbling it down on the way back to a nearby tree.

I prefer the hairies and downies, the bold and discriminating connoisseurs of fat, who have always known a good meal, and savor it like gentlefolk.