ML416279941
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Media notes
Continuing male Acorn Woodpecker, initially found on 25 December 2021 by Naresh Satyan and Ted Keyel, here photographed by Curtis A. Marantz on 31 January 2022 at the Evergreen Cemetery in El Cento, Imperial County, California.
Observation details
Within one minute of our arrival, we began hearing the deep, grating, “kreek, eeek” call of the continuing woodpecker, and Dean spotted the bird on the trunk of a nearby palm before I have even retrieved my equipment from the vehicle. We then spent an extended period of time observing this bird perched high up on a palm trunk along Second Street just west of its intersection with Palm Street in the northwestern part of the cemetery. While under observation, this bird moved about the trunk, circling the tree, but it remained near the top of the trunk just below the crown, and although it looked around actively and it called quite a bit, the bird never flew. I also saw the woodpecker stretch several times, but these were the only times that I saw the partially spread wings. After we saw the hawks, I again saw the woodpecker, but now in a palm along First Street just east of Palm Street., where I again studied the bird and took more photos and a second video. This was a medium-sized woodpecker that appeared to be similar in size and shape to the Gila Woodpeckers that were also in the cemetery, but never seen in direct comparison. The bill was skim and of medium length, in that would have extended backward on the face to a point near the rear edge of the auriculars. I further noted that the bill tapered from a base of medium depth to a pointed tip along a culmen that appeared to be perfectly straight for its entire length. The forehead was sloping, and the crown was rounded, both on a head that seemed to be roughly similar to those of the Gila Woodpeckers in its proportion to the body. The neck was short and inconspicuous, and the body was plump, full-chested, and held upright and often away from the trunk with the tail used as a prop. The wings were notably long, with the primary projection seemingly exceeding by a short distance the entire length of the exposed secondaries, and with the wingtips reaching nearly to the tip of the tail. I further noted both that the wings tapered to rounded tips, and that there were only three or four primary tips visible beyond the longest secondary. I thought the tail was slightly shorter than the body without the head and neck, and I noted that the central feathers had heavy shafts and relatively pointed tips that were used as a prop against the trunk. The other rectrices were shorter and seemingly without the conspicuous points to the shafts. The legs seemed to be relatively short, and the toes and claws were both rather long, but I failed to notice how many toes extended forward. This weas a boldly marked bird with a clown-like pattern to the face. Surrounding the bill was a black frame that extended narrowly onto the chin and upper throat, around the base of both mandibles, and apparently onto the immediate forehead. Most of the forehead was white from the black just above the bill up to the junction with the crown, which was sharply demarcated. The crown and nape were a bright, crimson-red from the junction of the crown with the white forehead back to the nape and seemingly a short way down the back of the neck, where the red cap ended in a rounded terminus. Demarcating the red cap was a black face that extended forward from the eye as a rounded mask the upper edge of which extended along the demarcation between the supraloral and superciliary regions and the cap. The black of the face continued only a short way before the eye before curving down and then back along the lower edge of what I thought was the moustachial and the auricular regions to frame the white throat. Contrasting with the black face, the white on the forehead also continued down along the front part of the face to cover the lower throat out to the corners and right up to the auriculars before ending abruptly at the black breast. The breast and sides were broadly black and extending down to the lower breast, where again demarcated at least relatively sharply from what appeared to be whitish to light gray underparts. It is possible that the lower breast and belly were whitish centrally, but the flanks appeared to be clouded with at least some light gray, and there were fine, blackish streaks scattered along the flanks and across the undertail coverts. The underside of the tail was black, but I did not see it overly well, given that it was always against the tree. Below the red cap, the back and sides of the neck were glossy-black in color, and this same color continued uninterrupted across the back and scapulars. The black on the back ended abruptly at a white rump at what appeared to be a line that cut straight across the insertion points of the wings, below which the entire rump and uppertail coverts appeared to be white and unmarked. Further contrasting with the white rump, the upperside of the tail was again black in color. The wings were mostly black. I had a hard time seeing the wing coverts well, but they appeared to be entirely black. The most obvious contrast on the wings resulted from a large patch of white at the bases of the primaries that appeared to cover about the basal quarter of most of the feathers when the wing was spread; however, I saw in the closed wing only a relatively narrowband that appeared to be restricted to about the outer three feathers, and with a somewhat jagged outer edge. Apart from the white panel, I also noted that the exposed primary tips were dark brown and thus contrasting conspicuously with the mostly jet-black wing. Even the secondaries appeared to be mostly black, though there may have been a little brownish evident on the inner webs of some of these feathers. I never saw the undersides of the spread wings, and even my views of the uppersides were brief and limited to wings that were partially spread when the bird stretched. The bill appeared to be entirely dull black, the irides were white to cream-colored and thus contrasting conspicuously with black pupils, and what I could see of the legs and toes appeared to be medium-gray, but the claws were black.
Technical information
- Model
- Canon EOS 7D Mark II
- Lens
- EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
- ISO
- 500
- Focal length
- 400 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/6.3
- Shutter speed
- 1/640 sec
- Dimensions
- 2294 pixels x 1524 pixels
- Original file size
- 4.66 MB