Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers

What a glorious weekend we just had!  Seventy degrees in March -- what a treat!  We were so active this weekend that Monday's rain is almost a relief to have to sit inside for a little while, at least for me.  Maybe even for the kids too, who spent just about all day Friday through Sunday outside exploring the yard and playing with the neighbors' kids. 

Scott and I also played outside too -- cooking on the grill, eating for the first time outside on the deck, and even tackled what will be the first of many, many (many...) yard tasks by trimming and bagging all the low-hanging branches from a super thorny tree.  Although it's hard to ID without foliage, I'm pretty sure the thorny trees are common honeylocust, and they have these crazy 3-4" long (yes, really 3-inch long) thorns on the branches.  You could get seriously hurt on these things -- farmers out west use these trees as natural fences for cattle!  By removing the low branches, we've hopefully prevented the kids from impaling themselves on them. I'm really happy that the first phase of yard safety is over since those thorns really hurt!   

I've been looking forward to the spring to see what sort of birds live in our yard. Since we have some large hardwoods in the neighborhood and a very large meadow habitat pretty close, I'm hoping we have an even wider variety of backyard birds than at our previous house.  One of my neighbors, a hard core birder, mentioned that our town is along the migration route for hawks so the fall should be pretty spectacular too. 

It's been a few years since I've noticed any new species of bird at the feeders or in the backyard, so I was very excited when I spotted something new climbing up the sweet gum tree outside the window.  I grabbed the binoculars hung by the window to check it out.  A long running family joke, Scott said in his most authoritative tone, "Is it the yellow-bellied sapsucker?"  (Scott guesses yellow-bellied sapsucker for everything.)   I ran upstairs to a higher window for a better look.  Would you believe it really was a male yellow-bellied sapsucker?  Imagine our surprise!  That's fun birding humor, right?  Is anyone going to read this blog anymore if this is what passes for funny?  Regardless, Scott is going to have to pick a new random bird species to guess for the next years. Perhaps a yellow-throated vireo...