female yellow-bellied sapsucker

The female finally decided to show her face ;)

At least the female and male. Normally there is an immature with them but I have not seen it yet

;)

I can't thank my Muscadine Vines enough for bringing the Sapsuckers in. As you can see by this vine, it is a good source of sap for them.

That's if they follow their patterns of the last 5 years.

Surprised to see her as I thought they had moved on.

As you can see, this particular Muscadine Vine is well used by the Sapsuckers. This is a female but I'm not sure if it is an adult in molt or an immature as I'm not seeing much red on the top of her head.

Female is finally becoming more obvious and I've now gotten glimpses of the immature male traveling with them and kept well under wraps. And yet the male and female are still continuously fighting with each other.

and now the fighting begins. Usually the female arrive with an immature but I haven't seen any evidence of that.... yet.

This is another species that will be moving on in a few weeks. I hope they have some sense of how much joy they have given me this winter.

This is the female so I can say that ;)

Cause I haven't seen hide nor hair of the male in the last couple of days.

Last year she was queen of the suet feeders and the male was not allowed in. Towards the end of the season there was a showdown which I caught with camera and the male won. Now she sneaks in whenever she can and this time the male was above her by about 10' and she knows it.

I now know that a shot is do-able with a shutter speed of 1/50 and an aperture of F8. I've had maybe two sun filled days since I got my new lens and have been really frustrated. Sooooo, in a very gloomy overcast sky late this afternoon, I set up the camera on the heavy Swaro tripod and fooled...