The Red Heads

IT finally warmed up enough for me to take my camera out and not have to put gloves on and off...just cant deal with the small buttons and gloves!! IT was the perfect day to go to what I always lovingly call the "Forty Acre Woods"...its not really 40 acres its more like 150 and its a very abused piece of land used to grow and cut timber within walking distance of my house its about 1/4 mile away. Lucky for me the last time they cut it they never replanted!!

 SO its more open now although the brambles are beginning to take over./.its also leased for hunting so certain times of the year I cant go rambling thru there. But the great thing about it is the land is not flat its on a slope...and at the bottom of that slope is a wet area where the entire acreage drains and this creates a seasonal pool of water so that means BIRDS love this area. I always see amazing birds there..in the spring n summer the Indigo Bunting & Blue Grosbeak are my favorites to stalk, and year round the Red Headed Woodpecker!  

This is their typical stance 

They are very curious so not too hard to get close to...I usually make a lot of strange noise and they come to check me out...there are several standing dead trees they make use of in the Forty Acre Woods for nesting. I have to visit again in the spring when they are feeding and raising young! Last year there were many of them...they use the trees closer to the water pool I mentioned for nesting...since water means BUGS! The trees have large holes hollowed out for the nests...REALLY COOL spot to reconnect with nature.

They have a complete red head, a broad black back with a wide patch of white on the lower half of the wing so its' easy to ID them in flight...

                                  with his beak buried in the tree holes

They differ from the Red bellied WP in size, shape and coloration, 

they have a red slash on the head from forehead to neck and back and wings, with a  ladder side to side striping, 

                                

                                        Red bellied for comparrison...

And then there is the BIGGEST of our Woodpeckers the Pileated Woodpecker, cousin the extinct Ivory Billed Woodpecker. These guys are about 16-19 inches in length...this one happened to land on the ground to work on the base of this tree.  

We have other red birds, but these are some of my favs.