I had to laugh out loud at the instructions your Wildlife Department gave you, and I had mental visions of your husband in his trapping gear. It's prolly an everyday occurrence to them and they think nothing of it. I have been clawed and bitten sufficiently by my gentle little hens to take beaks and talons with anything but the greatest respect. Like Lilo says, I have a great deal of empathy with birds of prey. Life isn't easy for that kind of predator. I get daily performances from our turkey vultures (who are carion eaters and not likely to kill anything) and it's amazing to watch them. Over the years, I see that they do their hunting with a precision routine, and it's not at all random. They plot out zones and soar up high, and circle down low and then move over to the next zone and do it again if they don't find food. Sometimes there'll be a dozen of them doing this in tandem. When they light, I know that somewhere in the fields or pastures below, an animal lays there dead or dying. In the wintertime, I watch the routine of one particular female Cooper's Hawk. She is magnificent and for the last couple of years, I have watched her make her daily rounds. Our property is part of it, although she roosts in a grove of trees between some pastures up and across the road. After she checks out our feedings stations, she heads up to our spring grotto for awhile before moving on. Last winter, one of her progeny (I'd presume), a young male followed her same route almost daily. It was so funny, yet sad, to watch him as he first started learning to hunt. He tried to fly into the vines after the smaller birds, and got entangled. He sat there in full view under the feeders for long periods of time, like the birds would going to fly down and into his mouth. He caught on, eventually.

When you all talk about suet, do you mean the packaged gooey stuff that goes in the square green wired baskets, or the bell-shaped thingy with seeds all over it? Or something enrirely different?? Terrene, what is a log? Can you post a picture of what you all are talking about? Oh, and I did see the woodpecker yesterday evening, but not at my feeder. He (actually she) was flying from one tree to another. It was funny watching her. On the tree she stopped at, she landed on the trunk and hopped backwards (down the trunk) and then after a little pecking, hopped back upwards.

don't know about your woodpeckers but i have a pair of lewis's woodpeckers who have nested here last 3 years. i also have lots of orioles and i put out fruit and jelly and watermelon for the orioles, the young Lewis's love the jelly and watermelon and eat lots of fruit and they come back every year. i also have downeys and hairys and flickers that use the same feeders as the Lewis's

That is very cool! I would love to have him roost in my yard for the winter too. Not sure if he would want to use your box to nest also? You can put the hole guard up early next Spring, unless the Red belly wants to nest there, that is. You can always put up another Bluebird box in the yard.