Downy woodpecker back at his well-tuned percussion

It's not really like a xylophone. More like a single note from a marimba. He likes it a lot.

I suspect he's the same bird who has been visiting for several years, and always attentive to the note -- just one -- that he gets from this stub of a branch outside our kitchen.

He was here three or four weeks ago with a female companion. But they disappeared. He is back again, but now alone, calling all day long on his stick.

For five minutes today he went to another tree, 25 or 30 metres away, and tried out the note on a stick there.

It was -- I assume -- too low, and he returned to his treble stick.