This year was the first year I have had a Red-Headed Woodpecker, I have red-bellied, and downy woodpeckers a plenty. But I can not seem to get these beauties to visit more than 1 or 2 times? Right now I use a Berry Blend Premium Suet. Any tips? Red-Headed Woodpecker ( photo / image / picture from naturenanni's Garden )
You have a rare visitor there! Red-headed woodpeckers are losing habitat, and therefore are seen less frequently. About attracting/keeping your visitor--they like insects, so if you can get some mealy worms they may feed on those. They also like corn and berries, so you could try putting a bit of cracked corn and some berries near your suet feeders. We, too have downys and red-bellied, but haven't seen a red-headed yet!
Thank you marlingardener I do have some meal worms for the blue birds and I will try the cracked corn. I never realized the beauty of this bird until I got the visit. Or the size of them pretty nice size woodpeckers Thanks again for the tips!
Woodpeckers enjoy suet, blocks, your own mix, straight suet from the butchers section. Here are a few of my pics of the birds that enjoy this type of insect substitute. Suet Feeders. Have a browse you may get an idea or two. There are other pages in this section also that you may visit. Hope it helps.
Glad you found the pages. Suet in all forms is a lot easier for the birds to find than the insects one at a time.
Kildale would suet cakes help keep sparrows away? I have a bad problem with them cleaning out the black oil sunflower seeds. I live in the country and have a bad problem with them.
I find that sparrows don't usually get to the feeder cage type, but if they can stay on the log type of feeder they will. I have not seen a sparrow on any of the three cages that I use.
I may have to invest into a couple different type feeders. I have 3 single suet holders that are the cage type in the woodpecker area. I may replace the wooden ones with another type for the song bird area. Heading back to your link
It would be nice if you can add a piece of wood etc. to the top off the cage feeders as it would help to keep the bad weather of the food. Also if you look at this news letter page you will see that these rooves are very useful Hummingbird feeder..
I had a pair thatnested this year in one of the Honey Locust trees. The male got killed by a car up on the road and the baby got killed by something that got into the nest. I saw small feathers at the base of the tree. This was the first time I had seen one here in the 30 years that I have lived here. They are very previlant in central and south Georgia. There they live mostly in pine woods. The wood of the southern white pine is a soft wood and easy for them to carve out their nests. The wood of the Honey Locust is the same when it is young and green.
The bird book that I have says that it is fairly rare that they are seen in central Ohio. So I imagine it is the same for Indiana. The seed blocks that the woodpeckers liked the most were ones with raisins and peanuts in it. They would devour all that they could get to, the first day that it was hung.
Thanks Capt. Kirk! I went out and got a couple new suet cakes could not find any with raisins but got a couple with peanuts and I will push some raisin in them LOL! I do have 6 pine trees that line part of the back yard I am not sure what kind they are. I have noticed all my woodpeckers and nuthatches in them. I hope that I can draw it back and hope that you also get to enjoy them again. Again thanks for the tips!
