Junior Red Bellied Woodpecker was fascinated with the vine hanging in front of Pops and kept grabbing it with his beak then freefalling while hanging on. Then he would jump off at the bottom of the fall, climb back up the tree and do it all over again. Dad did what my Dad would have done – pretty much ignored the kid’s activity and went on about his business.

Our backyard fledglings are like all other youthful critters and explore their new world, pecking at, tasting and checking all the new surfaces and fluttering things, sometimes with quite a humorous show. They are also not that nervous of we humans.