BN is correct, ..they should be coming here soon and will do allot of damage or kill trees. Here a male drinking sap after inflicting wounds/holes on one of several of my seedling Colorado spruce tree. Click on, [video] Put up audio all the way. Mom with offspring visiting one of several seedling birch tree. .. They eat the Oriole jelly, guess better then my trees! Since I planted hundreds of trees, it is a smorgasbord for them, wish they go to the neighbor,...not much to eat there.

Whitelacey.......this is so funny! I looked out my kitchen window, and on the ground under my suet feeder was a bird that looked just like what you described. Very black head and back with white stripes on the wings, and very white chest and abdomen. Of course, just as I turned to get my camera, it flew off. I should have stayed and observed more instead! As it flew off, it had pretty obvious white wing stripes. My first inclination was a juvenile male towhee.....since we have lots of towhees around. I saw no brown. I'll keep my eye out and my camera close-by........but I immediately thought of you and wondered if, now, I will be driven crazy too. hahaha What caught my eye as it was flying up to a tree was the white on it's wings, which made me think of a red-headed woodpecker. I looked up juvenile redheaded woodpecker and some of the pics looked like it, except mostly in the pics, their heads were grayish. Oh well.....hopefully I'll see it again!

Hi All Thanks a lot for the IDs - much appreciate your sharing of your knowledge! Like Esther, I too thought it was a Towhee but then wasn't sure since I didn't see any white on him, he was much darker brown, and had a sharper beak. He was quite far away (used 400mm lens). Thanks again Shyamala

Thanks a lot, Esther and gyr_falcon! I found a couple of better pics of the smaller bird but seems I can't post it on this thread (it refuses to attach the pic). I will post them in a new thread.