Red-bellied Woodpecker's Tongue

On the day that the crowd of robins visited, a parade of other birds joined them in the dogwood tree. Among them, this Red-bellied Woodpecker male. It's always a treat when he visits the dogwood tree, and this time was no exception. He flew into the dogwood limbs, hung upside down to pluck a berry, then flew to a nearby trunk to reposition it before swallowing.

 

 Red-bellied Woodpecker male

 

 Red-bellied Woodpecker's Tongue

 Red-bellied Woodpecker's Tongue 1 

 Red-bellied Woodpecker's Tongue 2

It was this that surprised me. He used the trunk's surface to reposition the berry, so that he then held it at the tip of his bill.With his long tongue extended, he used it in a lever-like fashion to move the berry into swallowing position.Once the berry was gone, he scooted around the tree to forage some more. But then, paused, looked back at another dogwood berry, hung upside down and stretched his tongue out to pick up something from its surface.A fun and intimate encounter. I hated to see him fly away. The good news--he's my neighbor!

 Red-bellied Woodpecker

WWF Campaign : Their extinction is Ours as Well

In the spirit of Wrangler – We Are Animals, here is the campaign for the International Organization for Conservation WWF. An effective baseline “Their extinction is ours as well” devised by the agency Dkp Brazil, on clichés Chico Barros. 




 

Building Constructed at Very Unusual Places

Located at Chesapeake Bay just north of the mouth of the South River, south of Annapolis, Maryland
Date Built: Original shore light – 1825, Re-built shore light – 1840, Current screw-1875.
Wedged house.
Intriguing house built between two rocks at Plougrescant in France.


Okinawa’s Treehouse Restaurant.
It’s actually an unusual tree house restaurant. “It’s situated up in what appears to be a tree, but it’s not a tree, just a very realistic made of concrete. There’s an elevator in the trunk that takes the customers up to the restaurant.”
The old mill of Vernon.
The old mill of Vernon, a half-timbered construction, lies straddling between two piers of the ancient bridge over the Seine River, France.
Dar al Hajar or Rock Palace in Wadi Dhahr.
A rock palace built as a summer residence in the 1930s for Imam Yahya.
“What makes the building so attractive is perhaps because it is exemplary of Yemeni architecture, it seems to grow out of the rocks on which it is constructed, and it has the characteristic painting of its windows and edges. Furthermore, it is standing all alone and can be seen from all sides.”

The Love Tree,

The Love Tree

We bought a gigantic christmas tree!

Matty and I cut out tons of hearts

and made a love tree.

Looks like it's working!

Thanks to everyone who shared their lovely winter stories with me! If you ever find yourself getting angry at the cold, just read through the comments and you'll be given 392 sweet, fun, and silly reasons to love winter again. It's so hard for me to pick just one person but I'll definitely have more fun contests in the future! =)