18 Comments

Beautiful insight! I am new to Substack, looking forward to connecting with a community of nature enthusiasts. Our family of five is located on a little forested homestead property in Downeast Maine - like you, we treasure noticing and stewarding native plants and wildlife on our little slice of land. I enjoy nature photography, capturing moments of connection in nature and everyday life - I just think noticing and sharing these connections is so important and beneficial! I'll be sharing the stories of my moments of connection in a free weekly newsletter (coming soon in October) - I look forward to reading more of your lovely observations, and hope you will like my nature stories as well :)

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Thanks for the insights into the lives of these splendid creatures. They have come to my bird feeders in the past though not often, and their red heads look more like Fur than feathers. I assume they will not come this winter very much at all because they have plenty of pin oak Acorns to eat. Since it is a masting year for pin oaks does that mean it's a mass year for other oak trees as well? I would imagine not since that would not be very efficient.

I loved the pictures and the recording. Thanks Diane!

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From what I observe at my place, the Pin Oaks and Red Oaks are masting. The white oak group of species, which includes White Oak and Burr Oak, are not. Thanks for commenting!

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Love those redheads!

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Me too. Thank you for reading and commenting, Patty.

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Wonderful observations, as always!

The chitterings and chatterings of our Acorn Woodpeckers out here on the California coast are a large part of the symphony on our deck. We have about 20 varieties of bird friends. Fun!

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I love those Acorn Woodpeckers. When I was in college, in fall they were constantly pushing acorns through the holes in the huge wooden gymnasium where I went every day for PE. It was a very tall building, and the holes were near the top, so the acorns fell to huge sound effect. I sure miss those Acorn Woodpeckers.

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Love that recording of their chatter. Great post!

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Thanks Jeanne. And thank you for commenting!

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I love learning about the strategies of plants and trees through your posts!

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Thank you Holly!

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Enjoyed your photos and article very much. So glad you have a lot of them this year as we here in Van Buren have not seen them as much as usual.

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I've been wondering how widespread the heavy masting of Pin Oaks is, as well as the Red-headed Woodpeckers. So your observation is a good datapoint, seeing as how you're in an adjacent county.

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None of our Oaks have a heavy crop of acorns though many of the Black Walnuts do have a heavy crop of nuts. Last year we had a very heavy crop of Sycamore seeds but I do not think there are hardly any this year.

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Wonderful photography, Diane! You must have a huge reservoir of *patience*!

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Thank you Susan. Sometimes I think I'm not so much patient as I am fond of doing as I please. And nothing pleases me more than watching birds go about their lives.

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Such great shots of these beautiful birds.

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Thank you Dakota. For reading and for the kind words.

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