The bird is most likely in the woodpecker family. If it is springtime, the bird is most likely establishing its breeding territory. Woodpeckers commonly drum on trees to signal to others that the territory is taken. The Northern Flicker, which is a woodpecker, drums on all kinds of resonant objects, including rain gutters, and telephone poles. Sometimes, woodpeckers actually look for food in the wood siding or trim of a house and this is very difficult to discourage.

For an extensive discussion on this subject, including reasons for the behavior as well as suggestions for damage prevention and control, see the website of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. 

According to the New York State Breeding Bird Atlas Handbook for Workers, Great Blue Herons lay their eggs sometime between April 15 and June 9.  The incubation period is 25-29 days, so that puts the earliest hatch time in mid-May.  Great Blue Herons have only one brood per year, however, so if the particular pair you are watching starts late, the hatch could happen quite a bit later.  The young stay in the nest for 2-3 months after hatching, so there is plenty of time to observe them before they fledge.

Commercial hummer food mixes are supposed to contain important nutrients other than sugar. While hummingbirds do need other nutrients in their diets, they glean them from natural sources, such as insects, even when they have sugar water available to them in feeders. Look at it this way: the hummingbird sees the feeder as a flower containing nectar, and it never relies solely on flower nectar for its nutrition. It has no idea that there might be protein in the nectar, so it will continue to visit real flowers and consume the insects that it finds there in any case. Another important factor to consider when looking at the commercial mixes is that they almost always contain red color. This is an unnecessary artificial additive with potentially negative impact on hummingbirds (there is no conclusive information on this today). Coloring the food is unnecessary because the feeder itself normally has red parts to attract the hummingbirds anyway.

When to feed: You can start any time while the hummingbirds are around, but once you have gotten them hooked on your feeders, be ready for them when they return in the spring. In Dutchess County, put your feeder out at the beginning of May and keep it filled until the hummingbirds have left for the winter (sometime in September).

For the health of the birds, it's important to use the right proportion of water to sugar when you make your own hummingbird food. You can keep your hummingbirds happy with a solution of 1 part sugar mixed with 4 parts water. Mix a batch, boil it for 3 minutes (to eliminate any potential parasites), and let it cool. Fill your feeder and pour the rest of the mix into a capped bottle. You can keep this on hand in your refrigerator and refill your feeder a few times before having to make up a new batch. IMPORTANT: Always make sure the sugar water in your feeder does not ferment or get moldy. Change the food every 3-5 days and be especially careful when the weather gets hot. Thoroughly clean the feeder with water every time you refill it. Remember, hummingbirds will often abandon an empty or unclean feeding station, and may not return in spite of your efforts to attract them back with fresh food. And ONE MORE POINT: You will be more successful in attracting hummingbirds if you plant flowers that will attract them also. Hummingbirds are especially attracted to red and orange flowers, especially those with somewhat tubular blooms including petunias, salvias, trumpet vine, and fuchsia.

Many birds respond to distress calls of other birds, which often sound similar to a "pish" sound. Other birds respond to squeaking sounds that can be generated by kissing the back of one's hand. Pishing and squeaking work best during the breeding season, when birds often react in an effort to chase away what they believe to be an intruder on their territory. Sometimes pishing is an effective technique to draw a bird out of dense cover when it is heard sounding its own alarm notes or chips.

A word (or two) of caution: First, not all birds are attracted by pishing or squeaking; in fact, any birder who has tried these techniques can tell of birds that were "pished off" to the point where they left the scene entirely! Second, and most important, it is not a good idea (or an ethical practice) to unduly alarm birds that are trying to ensure successful breeding. If a bird is already very excited or alarmed, you may be too close to its nest for comfort. Every birder should always exercise good judgment to place the safety and well-being of the birds first, even when it means missing a look or an ID.

Many birders keep a list of the bird species they have seen during their lifetime. This kind of list is known as a life list. A life bird (lifer) is a species seen during one's lifetime; in other words, it is one of the species on a life list.
Listing is enjoyable and useful to many birders. There are many kinds of lists besides life lists. There are yard lists (birds seen in one's yard), trip lists (birds seen on a particular trip), state lists, and so forth. Aside from the enjoyment of recording (and re-living) one's birding experiences, lists can provide good reference information. For example, it can be useful and interesting to look back to see what the earliest date was that a particular species returned to one's yard in past springs. When planning a birding trip where you've gone before, it can be helpful to look back at your birding records to either decide on the date you should take the trip or determine what birds you might or might not see when you make your next visit.
And keeping records and submitting them to the bird club each month helps ornithologists by providing data on population and migration trends from year to year. Such trends offer clues to environmental changes and their impacts on wildlife, which can lead to programs and initiatives to counteract or reduce detrimental human activities.

A good pair of binoculars represents a significant investment for a birder, so you should research the subject a bit before buying them. And a simple Q&A cannot do justice to this very important question, so we'll just give you a few pointers to get you started. When you're ready to dig in deeper, take a look at the optics links on our Web Links page. Then make sure you try the binoculars in your own hands before you make a purchase. Talk to other birders. Most birders will be happy to let you try their binoculars in the field. Join us on a bird walk!

Within the price range that you can afford, the primary factors you will want to consider are magnification, brightness, field of view, close focus distance, and weight.

For birding, magnification should be between 7X and 10X. Keep in mind that not only the image is magnified, but also the effect of your own hands shaking while you are holding the binoculars to your eyes. Many people swear by 10X binoculars, but many others cannot hold them steady enough to feel comfortable with them.

Brightness is important because you will often be observing birds in low light conditions, especially in the early morning or evening. In general, binoculars are brighter if the lenses are coated (because the coatings help prevent light from being reflected off the lenses). In addition, the larger the lenses, the more light they will gather. However, high quality optics with good coatings almost always perform better than larger but lower quality lenses. When comparing binoculars of similar optical quality, look at the numbers. 7x50 represents a magnification of 7X with lenses that are 50mm in diameter. 8x30 represents a magnification of 8X with lenses that are 30mm in diameter.

Field of view is important because a small field of view captures less of the area than a larger field of view and makes it harder to locate a bird in your binoculars. You might then waste time searching for the bird with your binoculars and losing it before you ever get to look at it.

Close focus is important when you are trying, for example, to identify a sparrow hopping about in a bush less than 10 feet away from you. If your binoculars don't focus closely enough, you will not see the bird clearly in those precious moments when it suddenly appears in your binoculars and thus you have less of a chance of making a good ID.

Weight and size are important, of course, because birding may take you on long walks with binoculars hanging around your neck. In addition, holding binoculars up to your eyes for extended periods of time can become quite tiring to your arms.

Now check those web links for a much more in-depth discussion of this subject. Your binoculars may very well be your most important birding investment, so you need to find a pair that's really right for you. Talk to your birding friends about the choices they made and what features they like and don't like. Then weigh the pros and cons of candidate products before you make your final decision.