Native plants for a Cape Cod garden

For two years I have watched what I believe to be the same group of woodpeckers interact at the suet feeder in my Cape Cod backyard. One species, the “downy woodpecker”, tends to feed most often at the suet feeder. You can tell a downy woodpecker’s gender by its coloration – the males have a red spot on their heads while the females do not. Today I watched them closely and noticed that the male was not happy with the female eating from the suet feeder, he kept pushing her away. In situations where these woodpeckers are not relying on human-supplied food, males are known to keep females from foraging in the more productive spots where insects are most likely to be found. I usually see two or three of these woodpeckers together. Like the hummingbirds I talked about in my last post, you won’t see non-familial birds together because they are deeply territorial. Unlike the hummingbirds, mating pairs of downy woodpeckers are inseparable regardless of the season. 

The “hairy woodpeckers” are another type of woodpecker that almost daily visits my backyard bird feeder. I have only seen one of these birds at a time and it’s always a male. This loner behavior  is supported by the fact that the males and females of this species do not hang out together much unless it’s breeding season. They may be together for life in some cases, but avoid each other most of the year. These birds will actually split up “custody” of the kids – the father may take half the brood while the mother takes the other. 

Both the downy and hairy woodpeckers will remain in my Cape Cod backyard all winter long, but their cousin the northern flicker will fly south for the winter. The flicker is 10-14 inches tall, much larger than both the downy (6-7 inches) and hairy (9-11 inches) woodpecker. It has very different coloration with a grey and red head. I do not see the flicker nearly as often as the other woodpeckers – it is always nice to see it as it is such a beautiful and somewhat more rare bird (at least rare to me). I never see a pair of these birds, and they do mate for life so I am not sure why the one who always visits my yard is a lone female.

If you would like to have the experience of seeing these lovely birds in your yard, here’s some advice from a company called East Bay Nature in California about how you can help create a suitable habitat for them:

“Wild bird habitat shrinks every day — both globally and locally — and many species of birds have exhibited frightening declines in numbers, even over the past several years. Creating a landscape desirable to birds is not difficult, but requires some understanding of natural habitat. A typical tidy suburban landscape with a closely mowed lawn surrounded by a line of sheared shrubs of all the same species provides little interest to wild birds. A diverse landscape is more naturalistic and provides attractive habitat for a great variety of birds. When creating a bird habitat, make sure you have what are called cover plantings for foraging, nesting sites, and protection from predators. These plantings should be dense (they can be thorny) and allowed to grow in their natural form. Hedging and shearing discourages nesting birds, depletes surplus/leaves needed for nest building, and removes flower and fruit food sources. Cover plants should be located close enough (within 15 to 20 feet) to bird feeders to provide quick protection from predators, yet far enough away so they do not provide “ambush sites” for cats. Dead trees or snags, which provide much needed nesting and food storage sites for many endangered species of birds are in real shortage in our meticulously maintained landscapes. If there is a dead tree in your yard that is not a hazard or eyesore, why not grow a vine around it and leave it for the birds?”