This week for our Outdoor Hour Challenge we studied spring birds. Our focus was the Red-bellied Woodpecker. We live in an eastern deciduous forest and this area is teeming with woodpeckers year round. The Red-bellied Woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker of the Picidae family. It breeds in southern Canada and the northeastern United States. Its common name is somewhat misleading, as the most prominent red part of its plumage is on the head; the Red-headed Woodpecker however is another species that is a rather close relative but looks entirely different.
For this challenge we walked around our neighboorhood listening for their distictive call. Red-bellied woodpeckers are noisy birds, and have many varied calls. Males tend to call and drum more frequently than females, but both sexes call. Often, these woodpeckers "drum" to attract mates. We are having a blast learning different bird calls and plan on trying to learn and identify a new call each week. Here is a picture of a woodpecker visiting our feeder.
