ML555861361

Age and sex

Adult Male - 1

Observation details

[Upon reviewing photos at home, Hairy x Ladder-backed really does seem to describe this bird well, but ID tentative until I get feedback. I also found that this bird is continuing, found in January by Robert Scrimger (reported as a Ladder-backed Woodpecker). So I didn't find it after all. Assuming the ID is correct, I wonder if this is a result of the explosion of Hairy Woodpeckers in the San Gabriel mountains following the Bobcat fire (and other fires) and some of them got pushed out to the desert. Original description follows] A really, really strange woodpecker. A male woodpecker with intermediate back pattern - with central longitudinal white area on the back, but this area that is supposed to be white on a Downy/Hairy Woodpecker was heavily barred. So clearly(?) a (Downy/Hairy) x (Nuttall's/Ladder-backed) hybrid. I considered a juvenile Ladder-backed or Hairy Woodpecker, but too many things wrong for that including timing. In the field, I thought this was a Hairy x Ladder-backed Woodpecker for the following reasons, but I'll obviously add photos and recordings and reach out to others for help. I think it is worth recording thoughts in the field even if they may be wrong. 1. The vocal array included "peek!" calls, descending rattles and other calls that were high pitched, very much like a Downy/Ladder-backed Woodpecker and not at all like a Nuttall's. I should have recordings of many of the vocalizations. The bird also drummed a couple of times from the other side of the lake, but I couldn't record that. I listened to Nuttall's and Ladder-backed drum calls, and this sounded faster like Ladder-backed, but I don't trust my ears on that. All this favors Ladder-backed over Nuttall's for the barred parentage 2. The bars on the white stripe were broad white bars with thin black lines, favoring Ladder-backed 3. This was a remarkably long-billed bird, definitely Hairy-like and not Downy-like. I'm familiar with the lengths of the bills of Nuttall's woodpeckers (shorter than Hairy), though I haven't carefully looked at lengths of bills of Ladder-backed Woodpeckers. The large bill does point to Hairy Woodpecker being the other parent (or ancestor) rather than Downy. 4. The outer tail feathers were mostly white but with two black spots - ambiguous, but what I would expect for a Hairy x Ladder-backed Woodpecker. 5. The red on the crown and the black-and-white pattern on the face and neck/nape are just weird -- the red on the crown is somewhat like Ladder-backed Woodpecker, but there is much black on the face, presumably the influence of the non-Ladder-backed-Woodpecker parent. The bird was mainly in trees on the west end of the lake, though it did move around (once all the way to the east side where it drummed a couple of times). It was quite vocal (all unprompted). Phew! Probably the best bird I've found in ages.

Technical information

Model

NIKON D5600

ISO

720

Focal length

500 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/4000 sec

Dimensions

1920 pixels x 1283 pixels

Original file size

879.72 KB