Yesterday took a group of my younger kids up to Barclay Lake, off US near
the town of Baring. At the first large campsite space at the lake a pair of
Red-breasted sapsuckers were flycatching from the branches at the lakes
edge. There were numerous adult stoneflies and Caddisflies and they were
going for both. A nest in a snag nearby contained 3 eager and hungry chicks
who contantly called whenever not being fed. It was almost is if the parents
shoved food down their throats just to get a bit of quiet. At one point one
of the woodpeckers landed on a horizontal log and went skipping along
picking up stoneflies, right up to a couple of kids who were perched eating
their lunch. Both the kids jumped down, afraid the woodpecker was going to
land on them. When they jumped the woodpecker stopped and stood still for a
minute or so, then continued along the log, coming within three feet of some
spellbound kids. The whole crew then began collecting stoneflies and
putting them in a big pile hoping to entice the woodpeckers for a feast!
They managed an impressive pile of arthropod lunch material, but became
enamored with the mud and abandoned the flintstones bird feeder project. .
Heck, mud, water, sticks. What more could any kid ever want?

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer, Teacher
Maltby, WA

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