Wood Peckers

[Raven]

Originally Posted by Striperhound

Talk about a loud bird when they are trying to attract a mate. I have one that sets up camp at 5:30 every morning on my stove pipe cap and makes a huge racket. It sounds like a machine gun and wakes my 2 year old up every morning. I must look like a crazy old man running outside with my bathrobe, cursing, throwing small stones at my stove pipe to get the little sucker to fly away. I have resorted to keeping a small cup of landscape stones in the house so I have them handy when "woody" shows up. I swear to god this damn bird is taunting me now.

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because i mean to attract them and the more the better...

--->
the reason he's using your stove pipe is because maybe in your neighborhood all the "sounding tree's" have been cut down or have fallen down... which is the effect of civilization invading their territory. They are our termite eaters and must be protected!
the yellow shafted flickers do some carpenter ants and lawn grubs.
anyways... the-
SOLUTION............
theres two approaches...0ne:you go to stop and shop or several different grocery stores ok ,and talk to the butcher if you don't see it
and ask for beef suet... which is relatively cheap stuff. Then you either hang some green wire mesh squares (@ walmart) that are like a six inch wide cube....where they will see it...(especially in the friggan rain)
or two:\
take an old oak log section with short stubby branches
(for perches)
and drill some 2 inch holes in it from top to bottom to
cram full of suet and hang it where they'll see it.

with that acomplished:

they will be so busy taking little chunks and stuffing them in choice personal wood pecker holes on their favorite tree ...
(cant do that to a stove pipe)
that they will switch drumming spots to protect their new stash of (squirrelled away) beef suet chunks...and attract their new mate to that NEW tree instead of your stove pipe.

then everyone will get their beauty sleep again.