I confess … I’ve been a bit lazy this summer. It’s a little too hot and humid for me during the day in Southwest Florida. That, plus a little travel to see grandkids, has seriously eaten into my birding time. To beat the heat, I set up to photograph this week’s full moon, but was stymied by wall-to-wall cloud cover on Siesta Key. The best-laid plans …
That said, I’ve noticed an unusual number of Pileated Woodpeckers1 on the bay side of our condo property over the past week or so … up to four or five birds at a time! These fellows can be a little challenging to photograph, because they don’t stay in one spot for very long. In addition, they have the annoying habit of sidling to the back side of the tree when they spot my camera (😠). Nonetheless, I was able to snag a good shot of an adult male earlier today:
And here is a short clip that I took showing two females working the same palm tree near our sea wall:
Two woodpeckers on the same palm tree, both female (no red cheek)
Wikipedia touts this bird as likely the largest woodpecker in North America. (The chief competitor, the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, is thought to be extinct.)2 I can believe the claim. This is one large bird, with an overall height of about 18″, and a wingspan up to 30″.
Our guy is not known for his genteel table manners. He makes a godawful racket as he unceremoniously hacks away at vulnerable tree branches. You can, in fact, often discover where he is simply by looking for the large chunks of wood falling to the ground.
(I took this particular picture back in November of 2019.)
These birds, however, are very majestic in flight, with their eye-catching white underwings:
Copyright: Caleb Putnam | Macaulay Library.
So far, I’ve been unable to capture this display with my own camera (😩), but I’m hoping to remedy this situation as soon as possible. Now that would be a wall-hanger!
And what about the reference to Woody Woodpecker? The back story is that Woody’s creator (Walter Lantz) was inspired by an Acorn Woodpecker that constantly drummed on his cabin during his honeymoon. This woodpecker, however, doesn’t look or sound much like Woody. The Pileated Woodpecker, on the other hand, with its fulsome red crest and piercing rattle fits the bill much better. You can compare all these bird sounds here. My money is on my shaggy-haired friend. 🐦🐦🐦
Featured Image
A female Pileated Woodpecker perched on a live oak branch on Siesta Key.
Footnotes:
1 The fancy adjective pileated simply means crested.
2 Declaring an animal to be extinct is a dangerous decision. A specimen of coelacanth, a lobe-finned relative of the lungfish, was pulled in by a South African fisherman in 1938, a mere 66 million years after it was thought to be extinct. I wouldn’t count the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker out yet. Happily, the Pileated Woodpecker is not in any danger. Its Conservation Status is listed as “Least Concern“by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Sarasota through the Camera Lens 