{"id":4432,"date":"2014-10-20T23:26:58","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T03:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/?p=4432"},"modified":"2014-10-21T07:49:18","modified_gmt":"2014-10-21T11:49:18","slug":"red-headed-woodpeckers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/2014\/10\/20\/red-headed-woodpeckers\/","title":{"rendered":"Red-headed Woodpeckers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Jamestown Island Va. 16 October 2014.<\/em> Every now and then you\u2019ll run into what seems to be a moving convention of birds of a feather. Birders often talk about waves of warblers, a fairly common occurrence in spring and fall migration when birds are moving en masse and they seem to be all around, I\u2019ve experienced it several times.<\/p>\n<p>Today I found myself in a gathering of representatives of the Picidae family; the woodpeckers, I think it was just coincidence, not a migratory wave; but whatever the reason, it was memorable.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4433\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4433\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/2014\/10\/20\/red-headed-woodpeckers\/blackjack-oak\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4433\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4433\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Blackjack-oak-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Blackjack Oak\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Blackjack-oak-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Blackjack-oak-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Blackjack-oak-400x300.jpg 400w, http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Blackjack-oak.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4433\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blackjack Oak leaves<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This was our last day in Virginia and I had the day to myself again. For the purposes of this posting, it\u2019s sufficient to say that the State of Virginia, in and around tidal waters, is a great place for finding birds. I spent a few hours on the botanically and historically rich Jamestown Island, stopping now and then to examine trees like <strong>Blackjack<\/strong> and <strong>Post Oaks, Persimmons<\/strong> and <strong>Black Tupelos<\/strong>, and exploring in general, trying to imagine how this looked as the capital of the Virginia Colony in the mid 1600s. Making my way out to the once strategic end of the island known as Black Point, meant passing through an open glade of <strong>Loblolly Pines<\/strong> where I could hear the <em>churring<\/em> calls of two or three <strong>Red-headed Woodpeckers<\/strong>. That certainly stopped me in my tracks and moments later I was rewarded with one landing on a decaying tree trunk nearby.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/2014\/10\/20\/red-headed-woodpeckers\/red-headed-woodpecker-3\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4438\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-4438\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Red-headed-Woodpecker-3-1024x764.jpg\" alt=\"Red-headed Woodpecker-3\" width=\"584\" height=\"435\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Red-headed-Woodpecker-3-1024x764.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Red-headed-Woodpecker-3-300x224.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Red-headed-Woodpecker-3-401x300.jpg 401w, http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Red-headed-Woodpecker-3.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But there was more to this place than <strong>Red-headed Woodpeckers<\/strong>, I also noticed a <strong>Downy Woodpecker<\/strong> bashing noisily at something overhead and, if the Downy was bashing noisily, a <strong>Pileated Woodpecker<\/strong> was positively pounding, if not axeing, a pine tree just across the way. Words don\u2019t do its efforts justice, if a picture\u2019s worth a thousand words, then a comic-book illustration with blurred action, sprays of wood chips and Bam! star-bursts would be more like it! \u00a0It was soon evident that there were, in fact, two Pileated Woodpeckers when they started calling out to each other with their rather slow mezzo-soprano laugh . They hung around for quite a while but were last seen flying away, one chasing the other like two overweight crows. The soft \u2018<em>chfff<\/em>\u2019 call of a nearby <strong>Red-bellied Woodpecker<\/strong> and a yellow flash overhead, the under-wing of a <strong>Northern Flicker<\/strong>\u00a0completed the woodpecker clan gathering.<\/p>\n<p>I lingered to watch the Red-headed Woodpeckers for a long time. In Ontario they are a rare treat and a rapidly vanishing species. A pity since, in a world where looks count, they are really quite spectacular.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-4432 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/2014\/10\/20\/red-headed-woodpeckers\/red-headed-woodpecker-5\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Red-headed-Woodpecker-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/2014\/10\/20\/red-headed-woodpeckers\/red-headed-woodpecker-4\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Red-headed-Woodpecker-4-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/2014\/10\/20\/red-headed-woodpeckers\/red-headed-woodpecker-2-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Red-headed-Woodpecker-2-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jamestown Island Va. 16 October 2014. Every now and then you\u2019ll run into what seems to be a moving convention of birds of a feather. Birders often talk about waves of warblers, a fairly common occurrence in spring and fall migration when birds are moving en masse and they seem to be all around, I\u2019ve &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/2014\/10\/20\/red-headed-woodpeckers\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Red-headed Woodpeckers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4432"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4449,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432\/revisions\/4449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mybirdoftheday.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}