Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Now THAT’S a Woodpecker!

Pileated Woodpecker, Holiday Florida

Took Skruffy out for her morning ritual after Breakfast (she goes before breakfast and then about an hour after her 8 am breakfast…so this was around 9 am in the morning.)  I hear the squirrels just chattering and chattering…enough that I look up in the tree which is just over the fence from the Condo’s property.  And what do I see?  A Pileated Woodpecker!  Wow, this is my first Pileated Woodpecker in Florida…I think.  At least the first one here where we live. I use to see them in Arkansas in the park I lived in while working at the Library.  Not real often, but enough that I knew they were around there.  I have also seen a couple during our travels.  The only woodpecker which is bigger is the ivory-billed woodpecker, which they 'thought' they found again in Arkansas, but never caught on camera.

Pileated Woodpecker, Holiday Florida

This picture above was my first shot…you never know how long a creature will stay still, so you need to get a quick picture just in case that is all you get.  Fortunately, I was able to get a number of close-up shots.

Pileated Woodpecker, Holiday Florida

Then you in with the zoom, and with birds, you put it on multi-shot because they have a tendency to move their heads real quick…this way you have more shots to pick from.

Pileated Woodpecker, Holiday Florida

And if you are lucky, you get to see what they are up to.  I knew the squirrels had nothing to fear with the Pileated Woodpecker, it does not go after squirrels or their young.  These birds mainly eat insects, especially carpenter ants and wood-boring beetle larvae. They also eat fruits, nuts, and berries.  Today, it was Berry time…which is probably why it was out among a few isolated trees, and not in a grove of trees…but there are many groves nearby.

Pileated Woodpecker, Holiday Florida

Here it was “eyeing” the berries that you saw in its mouth in the previous picture.

Pileated Woodpecker, Holiday Florida

Not sure it knew I was down below or not…it turned to the right like this a few times, never did see it turn to the left.  Those squirrels never did stop…they saw this big bird as a threat regardless of its true intentions.

Pileated Woodpecker, Holiday Florida

This was one of the last pictures I took…it was still after some more berries.  Went inside to show Marcia what I got, went back out…and it was gone.  What a good way to start the day!  Just think what type of pictures I could get if I got out there and tried to find something.  Well, that's something to worry about on another day.

2 comments:

We love to hear comments from our readers. All comments are moderated by Dave before added to the website. Spam, advertisers and rude comments are deleted, and due to high spam attempts, Anonymous Users cannot post, sorry....register for a Google ID, it is free and it is easy. Go to: Get Google ID