Hide and seek

Head and tail.

Maybe this is where the word "peckerwood" comes from. Just as I was finishing up my bout with the woodpile today, a woodpecker flew over and landed in a tree with a southern exposure. I raced for the camera, got the new lens on it and headed back out to test the image stabilization feature and hand hold for a shot. The woodpecker had disappeared.

They will work their way around a trunk so I watched for a while scanning up and down the tree where he landed. Not a bit of motion except for chickadees fluttering around the nearby feeder.

Here's a watchbird watching  you.
A nickel to anyone who can guess
the reference.

I started looking around at the other trees I know they like, mostly huge cottonwoods but still no motion. Then I noticed the new feeder I had put out a few days ago was moving but I couldn't see a bird on it. It's one of those cage deals with a block of seed held together somehow inside. It was swinging unnaturally and then some protrusions showed that shouldn't have been there. Sure enough there he was, working it over pretty good, but on the shady side with the feeder between us. The few shots available never showed the bird's whole self. If he had come around into the sun there might have been a great shot, but silly me to think the bird would cooperate.

Woodpecker pecking wood.

Then he flew off into another cottonwood, again on the shady side. I chased him up the tree with the camera, sometimes hand holding with the lens at 400 mm with somewhat positive results. Pretty sure it's a downy and that's only by judging him by his size on the feeder. Downy woodpeckers have the same markings as hairy woodpeckers but are considerably smaller. Given that only part of his head and part of his tail feathers showed from the back side of the feeder which is maybe 3 or 4 inches wide, my guess was the smaller downy.

So, that's the adventure from the wood lot today. Stay tuned.