For jay and woodpecker week, here is a Lewis's Woodpecker--quite different from most woodpeckers with his pink breast, red face, and shiny green back and head. They sometimes winter in my local mountains. Hope I'm not stepping on Wayne's toes--this bird does occasionally winter in parts of Texas, but it is not in its usual range. A couple of years ago there were about 25 of these birds wintering at Silverwood Lake, in the San Bernardino mountains. They were flying all over, from tree to tree--I didn't know where to focus my camera first! 9/20/19 Judith Sparhawk
Keeping in Wayne's theme of the week of jays and woodpeckers, this is a Red-breasted Sapsucker, photographed in the east side of the Sierras. It is perched by its sap wells described by Wayne yesterday--as sap seeps into the wells, it "sucks" up the sap with that specialized tongue. This sapsucker lives in coniferous and mixed forests in west coastal mountain ranges. One identifying marker for sapsuckers as compared to other woodpecker, is the long white wing patch. 9/18/19 Judith Sparhawk
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
