For years now, I’ve been slathering peanut butter on corn cobs for the squirrels. They repay me by swinging wildly from the corn cob suspended from a shepherd’s hook. I smile.

Last year, a crop of babies was born in our newly hung chickadee house. With more chickadees hanging around, some of them discovered the corn, perhaps by watching the squirrels feed on it. They’d buzz the corn periodically, landing on it after the squirrels had removed all visible traces of peanut butter. The little birds still scavenged something out of the holes in which corn kernels had originally nested. Sometimes three of them eat in rotation. While one feeds, the other two lurk in the hedge.

This year, the chickadees became regulars. And just this month, I’ve noticed woodpeckers — at least two of them — feeding on the peanut butter. They must have followed the chickadees.