Red-bellied Woodpeckers Gathering and Stashing Berries
I spent many hours over the past couple months watching and photographing the huge number of Red-bellied Woodpeckers so easy to find in Everglades City. I’ve never in my life seen so many of them in one small area.
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpeckers
I’m not sure the species of palm tree that produces the black/blue/purple berries, but I do know the Red-bellied Woodpeckers know and love them. An area mid-town was superb for watching them. They cleaned off those area palm tree berries when they ripened in a couple of weeks.
Swoop in, hang from the berry branch, pluck the berry, then swiftly fly away to other nearby palm trees that hosted their nest and stash them all around it in the tree’s bark. Literally, pushing and pounding them into holes and crevices on their nest tree. Then fly back for another!
Red-Bellied Woodpeckers gathering and stashing berries
You ever take a photo with poor exposure results but just can’t trash it for one reason or another?
Here’s one of mine, shot in the shade with poor exposure. But it looked too adorable to trash. So I played a little with it in black and white and presto! It became worthy of saving!
Red-bellied Woodpecker
For those curious on what the original photo looked like, here you go.
And to think, I almost deleted it…..
