woodpecker images

[rinky.dink]

This year has been a banner year for seeing and photographing woodpeckers of ever variety. The only one missing for a grand slam is the Pileated, which I hear often and see on occasions but never close enough to photograph.
wayne

[JimDE]

Nice capture Wayne..... they can be tough birds to get close to. My bucket list bird is a Kingfisher pic

[Chesapeake TJAM]

Nice shots. I've not had had any luck getting even a half decent shot of a pileated.

Jim-Was talking with a photographer trying to capture some bald eagles on the ice and he was telling me there was a healthy population of Kingfishers in the Sassafras and a few resident/frequently seen ones in one of the creeks off of Ordinary Point in the Sass.

[HJS]

This is my only barely acceptable photo of a pileated woodpecker. I have a suet tree located about 125’ from my house. It’s a snag of a dead tree that I bored several 1.5” diameter holes in it. During the winter I keep the holes packed with suet. At least one pileated shows up ever day. Over the past few years I’ve had up to 3 pileateds there at one time. Having 2 there is fairly common, happens once a week. The two holes that you can see are 13” apart on center.

Pileateds are 10X more skitterish than any of the other woodpeckers we have visiting our suet tree here in the Catoctin Mountains. Common visitors includes downies, hairies, and redbellied. Even at 125’ from the house, if I look out the winter too fast the dang bird looks my way then flies off in a huff. Tuff bird to photograph.