keep your camera ready

[Roostertael at aol dot com]

Hi,

I stayed home today to recuperate from Ed Leite walking my legs off on the CBC. I occasionally watched the birds in the yard and saw some waxwings in the tree. I wanted to see if the lone Bohemian was with them again and got my binoculars out. I had to go to the bottom of the stairs of the deck to get the sun out of my eyes. I was looking through the Cedars, and saw a lump on one of the main branches of the tree. Whoa, a sapsucker. I could only see a little bit of red under its chin and sneaked inside to get my camera. It was of course locked up. By the time I got it together and back outside, no sapsucker in sight. Well, I was not going to give up that easy. I got my bird calls and very optimistically played the Yellow-bellied call for ten or fifteen minutes. No results. Okay, I don't want to but I changed the call to the Red-naped and again played it for ten minutes. Got a Downy, then a couple of flickers that seemed interested in the call and then a sapsucker. I took a bunch of photos until it lost interest in the call and left. 

Suspicions confirmed: Red-naped Sapsucker. Not a total loss though, a new yard bird and maybe a little early Christmas present.

Jack Binch
P.S.-no Bohemian.