I was at Bill and Alice’s long enough to observe the habits of several birds and be ready when they showed up. The Gila Woodpecker was one of the most predictable. It would always land near the top of one of the Palm trees, peck a few times, look around,
and dive down
to the Hummingbird feeder, or at least what was intended to be
a Hummingbird feeder,
though I think the Gila Woodpeckers had taken possession since I never saw a Hummingbird land on it.
I’ll admit that I always thought it was the same Gila Woodpecker that was visiting the feeder, but when I started working with the photos I realized that it was at least two different birds that followed the same pattern since one of these birds is a male (the one with the red topknot) and the other one is a female.
Never realized woodpeckers would go after hummingbird feeders! Interesting!
A Facebook friend posted about a hummingbird that kept hovering in mid-air staring at her through the window while she was having morning coffee. She finally went out to see what the problem was and there was a small Praying Mantis on the feeder. She carefully removed it and moved it to a bush and the hummingbird then happily went to feed at the feeder. She looked it up and found that the larger Praying Mantises actually attack hummingbirds. The bird was trying to tell her to make the feeder safe for him or her! Birds are amazing.
I do find them almost as amazing as they are entertaining.