We've had a couple visitors this week. My son, Kaden, he is the official bird spotter. It seems he's the one to spot our feathered friends.

This time is was a Downy Woodpecker. Beautiful white spots on black feathers. The males have a small red patch on their head. Here's a close up picture I found online.

We watched him from the window in awe as he pecked away. It was quite comical. All of us starring in wide-eyed wonder of this magnificant creature God made. Dad tried to open the window to hear him pecking, but as soon as he did, our friend flew away. But we were able to watch & draw him for about 10 minutes. Long enough to look in our field guide to be sure that he was in fact a Downy, and find out a couple facts about him.  This was as close as we've ever been to one.......right outside our front window.

 <~~~ he's on this side of the tree, where the branches start to come out from the trunk........in this bottom picture, he moved to the top section of our tree.

Our other visitor was a Common Grackle ~ not quite as exciting, but a new visitor to our yard nonetheless.