Woodpeckers

Woodpeckers are cool. Any creature that can puncture a hole in solid oak with nothing but the force of their head demands respect. Here is a look at these unique birds:

Pileated Woodpecker is a very large North American woodpecker, roughly crow-sized, inhabiting deciduous forests in eastern North America.  It is the largest woodpecker in the United States.  Pileated woodpeckers will often chip out large and roughly rectangular holes in trees while searching out insects. Pileated woodpeckers also raise their young every year in a hole in a tree. In April, the hole made by the male attracts a female for mating and raising their young. Once the brood is raised, the pileated woodpeckers abandon the hole and will not use it the next year - but other cavity-nesting birds will find and re-use it.


Downy Woodpecker is the smallest of North America's woodpeckers. Downy woodpeckers forage on trees, picking the bark surface in summer and digging deeper in winter. They mainly eat insects, but also seeds and berries.


Hairy Woodpecker inhabits mature deciduous forests in the United States and Central America. Mating pairs will excavate a hole in a tree, where they will tend to, on average, four white eggs. These birds forage on trees, often turning over bark or excavating to uncover insects. They mainly eat insects, fruits, berries and nuts, sometimes tree sap. They are also known to peck at wooden window frames and wood sided homes that may house bugs.


Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1766. They nest in a large cavity excavated in a deciduous tree, often choosing one weakened by disease; the same site may be used for several years. Both the male and the female work in making the nest, where five or seven white eggs are well concealed. Both birds share in hatching. They will mate with the same partner from year to year, as long as both birds survive.


Red-Bellied Woodpecker does not actually have a red belly (it's pink-ish), but it does have a red head. But it can't be called Red-Headed Woodpecker, because that name was already taken but an even more red-headed woodpecker. Got it? Cool fact: its tongue is longer than its body. It fits by wrapping around the skull inside its head.


Northern Flicker is one of the few woodpeckers that migrate. They are also special in that they breed on the ground and not in tree cavities. The Eastern and Western flickers have different colors on their undertails and underwings. You can see it in the eastern specimen in my picture - its tail is yellow. The western birds have red. They used to be considered different species, but now it's agreed they are the same.


Golden-Fronted Woodpecker is the most ubiquitous in its range. When I went to Rio Grande Valley, this was the first bird I saw - in the airport parking lot. Its name is obviously based on the yellow patch on the back of its neck. But like most similar woodpeckers, the males also have a red patch on the top of their head, like this one:


Gilded Flicker is a southwestern species. It's very similar to the Northern Flicker above, but it earns its special coolness from nesting in saguaro cacti, like this guy here:


Syrian Woodpecker is my only international woodpecker so far. It is common in southern Europe and the Middle East. It looks similar to the Downy and Hairy woodpeckers of America, and its habits are also similar.


A pair of Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers enjoying their morning:

On the nest

A compilation of some of the more intimate moments.

Let's start with the most familiar. I give you the American Robin:


Mourning Dove:


Blue-Grey Gnatcatcher:


Cedar Waxwing:


Warbling Vireo - check out the things she incorporated into her nest:


Not everyone's nest is out in the open. This is a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker:


Red-Eyed Vireo:


Eastern Kingbirds:


Black-Necked Stilt:


Some folks live in detached houses. Some prefer apartments. This is a Great Blue Heron rookery:


A young Great Blue Heron on its nest:


And a couple of Barn Swallow chicks in their classic home:

Awesome close-ups

I've got some great close-ups for you. I wish I could say I took them in the wild, but I am not that good (yet). All these shots came from zoo and rehabilitation birds and animals - enjoy!


Peregrine Falcon


Bald Eagle

Red-Shouldered Hawk


Red-Shouldered Hawk


Short-Eared Owl


Bald Eagle


Great Horned Owl


Bobcat


Tawny Frogmouth (yes, really)


Budgies








Galapagos Turtle

"American" birds

Once I started paying close attention to the types of birds I was taking pictures of, I realized that a whole set of well-known species, normally known under just single-word names (e.g. "crow"), had the qualifier "American" in their formal names (as in, "American Crow"). So naturally I was curious what their counterparts were on other continents. Here is what I found out.

(The pictures on the top of each two-picture set are of American species and are mine. The pictures on the bottom are of their counterparts from Europe or Asia, and are stock pictures from the Internet - mainly, Wikipedia.)

Let's start with a bird that's surely familiar to everyone: American Robin (top). It's actually a type of a thrush, a family of birds that feed on insects and berries found on the ground (thus its rigorous lawn-upending activities). The European Robin (bottom), on the other hand, is a type of a flycatcher - it hunts insects on the fly, although it forages on the ground too.



The American Goldfinch (top) and the European Goldfinch (bottom) have similar size and behavior, but very different coloring:



American Kestrels (top) rely on insects more than their European counterparts, such as the Common Kestrel (bottom). Europe boasts four different types of kestrels, and their main food is voles and mice. Cool fact: both sets of kestrels also hunt other birds, and are able to take prey twice their weight on the fly.



American White Pelican (top) breeds in interior lakes of the American West. The Great White Pelican (bottom) ranges from Europe to Africa and Asia. Both have very similar feeding habits: They do not dive for food but scoop the fish up while swimming, sometimes coming together in groups of up 6-8 in a horseshoe pattern to corral it together.



American Oystercatcher (top) is actually not the only American oystercatcher. The other one is the Black Oystercatcher (bottom). The former is found mainly on the East and southern coasts, while the latter lives on the West Coast.



American Wigeon (top) and Eurasian Wigeon (bottom) are very close relatives. Every winter, a number of European birds end up in North America. Some stay for the summer and hybridize with the American ones. Both types of duck are noisy and visible, but the Eurasian Wigeons are more common in Europe than the American ones are in the U.S.



Final example: the avocet. There is one species of avocet in each continent. The American Avocet (top) breeds in the West but winters on the southern Atlantic coast. Pied Avocet (bottom) breeds in Europe and central Asia, and winters in Africa and southern Asia. Both feature distinct slender, long, upcurved bills.