Sit Spot, Day 2

Stalked out to the tree early this morning, gloriously sunny daybreak full of bird activity. The birds were silent and absent when I first arrived, despite my attempted stealth. After a few minutes, two nuthatches began flitting about the tree, one feeding the other with his finds. Within a minute, he swooped down to investigate something just behind me, then appeared a moment later a foot from my head, hopping about and searching for food. He was so close I could see how disheveled some of his tiny feathers were. The two of them got the party going, and within a few minutes the tree was alive with movement and song.

At one point, it seemed that a large bird had suddenly careened straight into the far side of one of the pine's massive trunks, about 15 feet above my head, but afterwards there was no movement. I considered craning my neck around to try and determine what had occurred, or if I had imagined it, but decided it best to stay put. A minute later, the flicker who had made the spectacle hopped (or rather lumbered, compared to the nuthatches' daintiness) out from behind the trunk. It came out into view above me and looked about the tree, never looking down, then flew off and spent some time in the next tree over. Perhaps looking for a nesting area? I'll have to read up on them to see what their nesting habits are. But the possibility that the flicker was considering nesting there gave me immense motivation to stalk even more carefully from now on.