Wildlife, landscape and weather photography
A fun, little visitor to our campsite last weekend. As I was sitting outside, I could hear light, pecking sounds from a nearby stand of trees so went to investigate. There I found this young woodpecker, doing what woodpeckers do. It is clear this tree is a pretty popular spot for it to look for a meal.
NOTE: I have been told this is in fact a Red-naped Sapsucker. Go figure. I am so bad at identifying “little birds.”
A first for me, a red-headed woodpecker. Driving through Custer State Park, South Dakota one morning last week, I was on the lookout for wildlife but mainly focusing on mammals. As I turned a corner, up in a tree, a bright red spot caught my attention.
Training my camera on it, I was happy to see this absolutely gorgeous bird. It was very kind and let me snap a number of pictures of it before taking flight into the forest. That plumage was absolutely beautiful.
Woody works on woodpecking. I don’t normally focus too much on smaller birds but this little one was working so hard I figured I had to capture the action. Taken on a cold day last week with light snow falling, this Downy Woodpecker wasn’t letting the weather conditions bother it one bit. He worked its way around this tree doing its best to find a meal.
The Downy Woodpecker is a very busy, active little bird. It moves quickly from spot to spot, pecking at trees looking for small insects. This female was doing just that recently in Adams County, Colorado.
I find these birds are much easier to hear than to see as they don’t sit still for long and tend to hang out in areas that are quite wooded. Thankfully this one gave me a few nice pictures, like this one, where she was hanging almost upside down pecking at a tree.
Female Downy Woodpeckers are all black and white while the males will have a small red tuft on the top of their heads. These birds are common across much of North America so you most likely have some not far from you.
Certainly my camera is usually focused on raptors or large mammals but every now and then other birds grab my attention. These four are some that I captured images of over the past couple of months.
Great Blue Heron aborted landing. This heron was attempting to land on a very small island at a pond in Longmont, Colorado. Its speed was too great through and it missed the target, splashing its feet in the water for an instant before circling around for another attempt.
Sleepy female Red Winged Blackbird. This little lady was hanging out with a couple dozen of her lady friends in Adams County recently. While the others were raising quite a ruckus, she seemed quite disinterested.
Crow closeup. This Crow was hanging out at Sprague Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, making lots of noise as they oftentimes do. I suspect it was used to visitors feeding it and it was simply looking for a meal. It certainly was rather tame allowing me to get a nice closeup.
Downy Woodpecker hunts for a meal. While out for a walk I heard some light tapping sounds coming from a nearby tree. Investigating I found this nice looking fellow pecking away at a cottonwood tree.
I believe this to be a juvenile Red-naped Sapsucker, a pretty common woodpecker here in Colorado during the summer. It was alternating between grabbing bugs off the tree and looking around for threats. Taken in Arapaho National Forest.
Female American Three-Toed Woodpecker in Pike National Forest, Colorado yesterday, August 3, 2014.
Most woodpeckers have four toes but this particular species is one of the few that has three, hence its name. We were camping this past weekend and early yesterday morning I was focused on hummingbirds when I heard this constant tapping from a nearby tree. Upon investigation I found this gal who was not bothered at all by my presence as she went about looking for her breakfast.
This is not a particularly common bird to see if only because it prefers coniferous forests for its habitat. In particular, it prefers forests disturbed by disease and fire which could explain why it was in this particular location very near the area burned by the Hayman Fire in 2002, Colorado’s largest wildfire on record.
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