I had 2 visitors today

[VTSeaRay]

I've had up to 3 of these in my yard. Today I think it was a mother and this yr's nestling. He sat and watched his mother create this hole and get ants and other bugs out of it. (this is in a maple) it took her about 2 hrs to create the hole. (pileated Woodpecker, 16-18" in length.) The slightly smaller one worked at some top-level bark removal, but wasn't nearly as dedicated as the adult.

 

[temptress]

Dang it looks cold!

 

[VTSeaRay]

it got up to 15 here today, started out around 10 at 8am.

 

[temptress]

doesn't blod freeze at 32 degrees? : )

 

[temptress]

Blood, that is...

 

[VTSeaRay]

Ha! Saturday, it was -5 when I got to the ski slopes at 8am, and warmed up to a downright mild 15 by the time we left at 2PM!

-VtSeaRay

 

[Weave]

Where did you make some turns...Stowe??

I could go for a Shed Burger and a growler of Mt Ale!

Those are some great pics BTW

 

[VTSeaRay]

re: the Pics, thanks. I wish the one with the two of them wasn't so fuzzy, but I just had no angle at that point.

re: Shed burger and growler - yeah, that's good stuff.

I go to Smuggs normally every weekend(with a Season's pass), it's a 30 minute drive from my place. I learned to ski 32 yrs ago on Jay Peak back when I lived up North near the border, I'd go each weekend there. Now I go to Stowe, Jay, and Sugarbush at least once a yr, sometimes a couple times to Sugarbush. But, they're all about an hr and a half or more away. I usually ski in the glades, unless the coverage isn't very good. It's more challenging dodging the trees. Saturday there was just enough coverage to get thru the woods. There were a few areas on the steeps where we had to dodge the stones/roots, but overall the coverage was fairly good.

I've skied Killington a bit (back when I was in College, I was only about 40 minutes away, we'd skip classes on good snow days and head over there) but haven't been there in a few yrs (it's 2.5 hrs or more south of me), so it's a long haul for me, and that's lost ski time. Tough to make first tracks, like I do a lot at Smuggs.

LOL I remember a few yrs ago, we had this huge dump, and I was skiing in powder that was chest deep - it happens once in a while here in the East, making first tracks, and having so much snow in front of me, I had no clue where my skis were! I was laughing so hard it was so much fun that day! We went into the woods to try it there, and we're going down this ravine, and I hit this tree that had fallen across the ravine. It hit me at the ankle level and I went flying into the deep powder and my skis went under the tree. Popped right out of the bindings like it's supposed to work. I went back up to find my skis, laughing the entire time and yelling to my buddies to stop before they ran into it. It took me a few minutes to find both of my skis, but I did, and away we went, laughing some more we were enjoying it so!

-VtSeaRay

 

[skibum]

Ahhhh.... The only good thing about having the boat winterized. No guilt about not using it while messin up the freshies...

And in regard to the woodpeckers. Beautiful as they are, I'd be really pissed about them tearin' up my maple tree and making all of that racket. They're another one of God's little jokes. A bird that bashes its face on hardwood for 2 hours to get at some bugs when there are bugs all over the place that are much easier to get at. Now if they were drinking the maple syrup, then I might understand.

 

[VTSeaRay]

Ahhhh.... The only good thing about having the boat winterized. No guilt about not using it while messin up the freshies...

And in regard to the woodpeckers. Beautiful as they are, I'd be really pissed about them tearin' up my maple tree and making all of that racket. They're another one of God's little jokes. A bird that bashes its face on hardwood for 2 hours to get at some bugs when there are bugs all over the place that are much easier to get at. Now if they were drinking the maple syrup, then I might understand.

Yeah, a friend of mine (one of the guys I ski with every week) has a house with wood clapboard siding, said he had one of these put two holes in his house. (mine's vinyl) He warned me to get rid of them.

And, re: this maple, unfortunately, I'm having it taken down this spring before the thaw. A couple of yrs ago, the people that pulled my propane tank out near it, hit it with their tractor, and bruised the bark, and it's never recovered. I'm pretty upset, it's a sugar maple, and it's leaves are very pretty in the fall. I lost the other one on the opposite corner of my house when they added in my garage. I tried to keep it, but they said it was to close to the garage, and I didn't have a lot of wiggle room with the garage.

-VtSeaRay

 

[katricol]

I've got a bunch of these birds at my house. I enjoy the loud "screaming"

 

[VTSeaRay]

I've got a bunch of these birds at my house. I enjoy the loud "screaming"

Yes, it's a very unique call. Their flight is interesting to, it is like a nice sine wave. They do a couple flaps, pull their wings in for a ways, and then do it again, rather than a regular flapping motion.

Quite a few yrs ago, in the spring, I was walking in the woods out back, and saw a hole in a tree maybe 12' off the ground. So I stopped to watch and see what was in it. Well, it was a hairy woodpecker nest, and she knew I was there. Dive bombed me a few times, till I got out of the area! That was scary having a woodpecker diving at your face with that beak! She was within inches of my face too on the first dive, it really caught me off-guard.

-VtSeaRay

 

[sbw1]

Are you worried about losing the tree? I watched one of these go to work on a maple in a nearby park. The tree was topped in a windstorm at the level of the hole. We've had a few of these in our yard and they can do a surprising amount of damage to a tree in a short period of time.

 

[VTSeaRay]

Are you worried about losing the tree? I watched one of these go to work on a maple in a nearby park. The tree was topped in a windstorm at the level of the hole. We've had a few of these in our yard and they can do a surprising amount of damage to a tree in a short period of time.

The reason they're attracted to this tree, is from the damage I mentioned earlier that's below where they were making this new hole. It's attracted Carpenter ants. That's why I have to take it down. I was just waiting for the soil to freeze down to a depth so their equipment won't damage my property. If they keep making this hole larger (which they might) then I'll have to speed up the tree's removal so it doesn't fall on the house (it's only 8' away). It consists of a main trunk that must have been split(the split now starts around 6' off the ground) when it was small, and now they wrap around each other which helps make them both stronger. And that will make it more interesting when they cut it down, since they'll have to work on each sub-trunk as they take it down or it'll spin around on the other trunk.

On my previous property, I had some evergreens (hemlocks and cedars) that had a lot of carpenter ants in them. They had pileated woodpeckers put huge holes all over them, some holes were 12" tall, 6-8" wide, and about 6-8" deep. Each year as the trees grew, they would start to grow their bark and cover each hole up. Then the following year or so, the pileated would hit them again. It was almost symbiotic. The birds were keeping the ants out of them, (the ants seemed to do more damage overall (from the inside out) than the birds did).

-VtSeaRay