Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Father/daughter lunch

18 Comments

Walking through the living room this week I noticed two hairy woodpeckers on the feeder. That’s unusual. We don’t get hairy woodpecers often, and when we do it’s always a single bird chowing down.

Adult male hairy woodpeckers (similar but bigger than downy woodpeckers) have a red spot on the back of their heads.

I stopped to watch, from across the room so as not to startle the. Sure enough, one of them was a youngster, eating away happily while dad was on the other side of the feeder…

The young one enjoys a succulant oiler as dad eats on the other side of the feeder.

…but happily accepting a special morsal from dad when he offeres it.

This time of year seeing parents cater to their teenage, soon to be adult, children is pretty common. They don’t seem to notice that their kids are eating just fine and on their own when they’re not being waited on.

Can you see the love in dad’s eyes as he feeds his youngster?

I’m glad I happened to wander past their special time together when I did.

That was a good seed, wasn’t it!

Note: I’m not sure if the kid is a boy or a girl. There’s no red spot on the back of it’s head which leads me to think it’s a girl…but there IS a spot just above the beak and I don’t know what that means. If you know, please comment below!

Author: dawnkinster

I'm a long time banker having worked in banks since the age of 17. I took a break when I turned 50 and went back to school. I graduated right when the economy took a turn for the worst and after a year of library work found myself unemployed. I was lucky that my previous bank employer wanted me back. So here I am again, a long time banker. Change is hard.

18 thoughts on “Father/daughter lunch

  1. cool pics!

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  2. You know, there are humans who cater to their young adult children, too 😉

    Lovely captures, Dawn.

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  3. It is interesting, the Merlin Bird ID only identifies juvenile birds as juvenile – I don’t think it ever specifies male or female with the juvies that I can recall. Perhaps it is difficult to say until they are fully mature? Thanks for sharing the moment!

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    • My Michigan bird book mentions, in the Downy Woodpecker page, that some juviniles have a spot above their beaks…doesn’t say whether that’s a boy or girl juvie. And it doesn’t say that in the Hairy Woodpecker page…so maybe these were Downies…but they seemed bigger than Downies…so I don’t know…

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  4. Hi, Dawn!So glad that you were able to capture that special lunch date! You were in the right place! Thank you for sharing! Have a nice 4th of July! 🇺🇸

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  5. Hi, Dawn – These are fabulous photo captures! Thank you for sharing them with us.

    Happy 4th of July!

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  6. How nice to see and photograph this Dawn. I saw a Northern Flicker feeding its youngster last week and the “baby” was as big as the parent!

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  7. Oh my word, spectacular. Once in a lifetime.

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  8. So sweet! I’ve been seeing a lot of small birds taking on large ones (and chipmunks!) lately. Must be defending their babies. They sure do take parenting seriously.

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