excavation – Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography

Red-breasted Nuthatches and Their Nesting Cavities

By Mia McPherson|2024-03-12T07:50:50-05:00May 7th, 2018|Categories: Birds, Clark County, Idaho, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Targhee National Forest|Tags: aspen, calls, checking out, clinging, excavate, excavating, excavation, female, nesting cavities, nesting cavity, nesting tree, nuthatch, nuthatches, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Sitta canadensis, songs|

Right now Red-breasted Nuthatches should be looking for or excavating nesting cavities here in northern Utah which means I should take a trip up to the back roads in the mountains soon and see if I can locate some closer to home than Idaho or Montana.

Northern Flicker Letting The Chips Fall Where They May

By Mia McPherson|2024-03-04T12:52:09-06:00May 5th, 2015|Categories: Birds, Clark County, Idaho, Northern Flickers, Targhee National Forest|Tags: adult, aspen, bird photography, chips, Colaptes auratus, excavating, excavation, flicker, flickers, forest, male, nest, nesting behavior, nesting cavity, nesting tree, Northern Flicker, Populus tremuloides, Quaking Aspen, tree, woodpecker, woodpeckers|

I could hear the Northern Flicker excavating inside the nesting cavity and when he would stop he would appear with a bill full of shavings and forcefully eject them from the cavity.

Wonderful Lifers – Williamson’s Sapsuckers at their nesting tree

By Mia McPherson|2023-11-02T07:16:43-05:00June 1st, 2014|Categories: Birds, Clark County, Idaho, Williamson's Sapsuckers|Tags: adult, ants, aspen, blind, coniferous forests, excavation, female, forest, lifer, male, Montana, mountains, nest, nesting cavity, nesting tree, photographing, sap wells, sapsucker, sapsuckers, secretive species, sexual differences, Sphyrapicus thyroideus, squeal call, tree, Williamson's Sapsucker, woodland birds, woodpecker, woodpeckers|

I could barely contain myself because in my viewfinder was a gorgeous red, yellow and black colored male Williamson's Sapsucker.