ML458937811

Age and sex

Adult, Unknown sex - 1

Observation details

Apparent adult bird found by Trevor this morning. At first, following almost an hour of waiting, we heard aggressive rattle-churr calls south of the house. I then saw the Red-headed Woodpecker and a Hairy Woodpecker flying away, maybe the Hairy in chase. At that time I saw the white rump and almost contiguous white of secondaries and that's it. Later we saw the Red-headed Woodpecker well in trees and at feeders. This bird had a habit of taking some food from the feeders and processing it or caching it in small nooks along the trunk of a tree. The area showed signs of repeated visits, and indeed Trevor had seen that behavior earlier in the day. The bird also uttered a low, soft churr before descending to the feeders. Trevor later heard the bird do this repeatedly and captured on audio of that soft call. A medium-sized woodpecker that looks short in body length but with some bulk. The entire head, chin and throat were deep crimson, with a narrow black bar across the bottom of the red where it met the snow white underparts. Back, wing coverts, and tail jet black. Secondaries gleaming snow white, forming triangular block of white on folded wing. Bill thin and moderately long by proportion; the basal two thirds gray and the tip black. Eye and feet color not noted in the field. This is a rare bird for Somerset County, with at least one previous record in the town of Fairfield. This spring, 2022, has seen what I think of more than the usual number of the species in Maine for this time of year.

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/5.6

Shutter speed

1/640 sec

Dimensions

2400 pixels x 1600 pixels

Original file size

1.87 MB