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I've found during my years of wildlife photography that many of my best bird photos are taken in or near open fields.
That's not the case when photographing woodpeckers. They tend to stay deep in the woods because they drill or drum on trees to find food. There's not much for them to do in an open field.
I’ve photographed nearly every type of woodpecker found near our homes in central … Continue reading
Click on a photo to see a larger version
Red-bellied Woodpecker looking around, Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A male Downy Woodpecker stands at the end of a broken limb in Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A Pileated Woodpecker hangs from a limb in Six Mile Cypress Slough, Fort Myers, Fla.
A male Red-bellied Woodpecker visits a feeder in Blendon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A female Downy Woodpecker eats seeds in Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A male Red-bellied Woodpecker uses snow for moisture in Blendon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
Female Downy Woodpecker eating a seed, Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A male Downy Woodpecker stands in the sun in Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A male Downy Woodpecker takes a break from working on a limb in Prairie Oaks Metro Park, West Jefferson, Ohio.
Male (in knothole) and female Red-bellied Woodpeckers on tree, Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
Female Downy Woodpecker eating a seed, Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
Red-bellied Woodpecker on a tree, Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A male Downy Woodpecker hangs from a branch in Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
Male Red-bellied Woodpecker checking top of hollow tree, Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
Female Downy Woodpecker upside down, Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A male Pileated Woodpecker works on a log in Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A Red-bellied Woodpecker searches for food under the bark of a tree in Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A Downy Woodpecker perches on a limb in Six Mile Cypress Slough, Fort Myers, Fla.
Female Red-bellied Woodpecker checking nesting site, Sharon Woods Metro Park, Westerville, Ohio.
A male Hairy Woodpecker checks tree bark for insects in Prairie Oaks Metro Park, West Jefferson, Ohio.
Ohio and southwest Florida, but my favorite is the giant Pileated Woodpecker. Pileated Woodpeckers are huge, standing up to 19 inches tall. That’s about the size of a crow and twice as large as a Blue Jay.
And Pileateds are active, flying from tree to tree to drill the wood in search of insects, often a colony of ants (their favorite food).
When a Pileated Woodpecker is finished with a tree it looks like someone has taken a jackhammer to the wood. Sometimes the cavity created by the woodpecker is so deep that it can cause a smaller tree to break.
The Pileated Woodpecker served as the model for Woody Woodpecker, the cartoon character created by Walter Lantz in 1940.
The woodpecker I see most frequently is the Red-bellied Woodpecker, a bird that is common in forests across the eastern United States. The Red-bellied Woodpecker is about nine inches tall. Males have a red cape and nape. Females have a red nape. The bird also has a small red-tinged patch on it’s belly. Some people incorrectly call this a Red-headed Woodpecker. That’s a different, less common species with a head that’s entirely red.
Red-bellied Woodpeckers search for insects hidden in tree bark, as do other varieties of woodpeckers. But Red-bellied Woodpeckers also use the bark as a sort of tool. They wedge large nuts into crevices in the bark, then use their beaks to hammer the nuts into pieces. Like other varieties of woodpeckers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers also use cracks in trees to store food for later in the year.
The most difficult woodpecker for me to identify is the Downy … or maybe the Hairy. Downy Woodpeckers are almost identical to the larger Hairy Woodpecker in plumage pattern, so making an ID from a photo can be difficult. Males in both species have a red spot on the back of the head. The Downy does have black spots on its white tail feathers. And the Downy’s bill is shorter than its head while the Hairy’s bill is about equal length to its head.
