An amusing nesting-season drama has been unfolding just in front of our kitchen window. The hollow trunk in which the Yellow-fronted Woodpeckers (Melanerpes flavifrons) have drilled a series of nesting holes has acquired a squatter. Look carefully at the lowest hole in the picture here on the left, and poking out gingerly you will see the little green head of a Blue-winged Parrotlet (Forpus xanthopterygius), the smallest member of the parrot family found in this region.

It is really quite funny to watch. The parrotlet's head will emerge for a while, then withdraw back inside the hole as one of the irritated woodpeckers flies down to see what creature has the audacity to occupy the hole it has carved out with so much effort.

Then as the woodpeckers fly off in a group to do some foraging, the parrotlet emerges again to see if the coast is clear ...

And finally comes out of the hole to fly off. This has been going on for several days now, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out. I certainly can't see the woodpeckers giving up the other holes, so I guess it will end up as a multi-occupancy tree.

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