Lesser of two evils?

OK, my house here is a nice wood house. And lately it's been cursed with carpenter bees which eat the wood and resist every effort to wipe them out. As a result, several of the boards under the eves are starting to look swiss-cheesish.

But now "help" has arrived in the form of the carpenter bee's nemesis: the Red-Bellied Woodpecker.

Uh...Hooray? Honestly I'm not really sure which one is worse.



GET OFF MY HOUSE!!!!

Of course I've been chasing it away all day, but when I took a couple hours to go to the range, I came back to find a BAH (Big-Ass Hole) where the woodpecker had been pecking. Of course below it, I found the remains of numerous carpenter bees. On another side of the house, I found another hole, lots of sawdust, and more bee pieces so it obviously got what it came for. Now let's hope that it moves on.

Woodpeckers!

So the squirrels were chattering big-time in the yard today. And when I looked out to see why, I saw two large Pileated Woodpeckers on the trees, scaring the squirrels away from the bird feeder.


You get an idea how big these guys are when you see one on the bird feeder, picking at the suet.

They're about a foot tall.

The squirrel is still pissed, even though there's plenty of corn on the ground for him.
Since I started putting suet in the feeder, I've been seeing these guys and their smaller females around, This was the first time that I had a camera ready, though.