Try this sometime.
Climb out in a tree limb, put a seed in your mouth and open it with only your mouth and teeth, spitting out the husk eating just the seed and you can’t use your hands.
That’s pretty much what many birds do every day. It almost makes hitting a 95-mile per hour baseball look easy. Almost.
It’s fun to watch my backyard birds at the sunflower feeder where they munch seeds and spit out the shells on a daily basis. Some birds – like doves – can eat the entire seed and then let their gizzard take care of the digestion part, while others – like bluebirds – can’t eat seeds with husks.
Last week, I saw a red-bellied woodpecker fly to the feeder and snatch up a peanut. But rather than gobbling it down, he flew to a nearby limb, put the nut in a small crevice and then split it and ate it. Quite clever, I thought. I also understand that both woodpeckers and blue jays will sometime store nuts and choice seeds in and among tree limb cavities, just like squirrels.
Red-bellied woodpeckers are beautiful birds with zebra-like stripes on the backs and wings. Their distinguishable characteristic -a bright red head- often causes frequent confusion with the less common red headed woodpecker species, which shows a full head of bold red feathers.
The Red-bellies are suckers for suet. Hang a bar in your yard and they’ll quickly find it. They also enjoy sunflower seeds and peanuts, plus insects, acorns, and berries when available.
I am in awe of my fine-feathered friends. They are both skilled and beautiful and I will entrust them to perch on tree limbs and eat seeds.