While hiking in Madera Canyon in Arizona, I spotted this female Acorn Woodpecker. She had flown to the nest hole with food in her bill, and had put her head in the hole several times, as if feeding young, but I never saw the babies. The tree trunk appears to have been well used by these birds. You can tell that this is a female, because of the black band on the forehead--if it were a male, the red patch would come further forward, with the white facial markings meeting the red. 9/16/19 Judith Sparhawk
This is a male Nuttall's Woodpecker that nested in a local park here a few years ago. This species is the local counterpart to the Ladder-backed WP that Wayne posted a couple of days ago. The Ladder-back lives in the desert environments, with the Nuttall's living in local mountains , inland, and coastal California. It has more black on its face, extensive black on its neck, and narrower white stripes on its back. The two photos on the right were taken during the time the male was pecking out the nest hole. You can see that he had to go through some gymnastics as the hole got deeper. The one on the right was after the young were hatched and he had gone in to feed them, and was looking out before leaving the nest. You can see the passage of time by how the budding branches had leafed out by the time this shot was taken. 9/23/19 Judith Sparhawk
