Black Backed Woodpecker

I have to say that this sighting was and possibly will be the best sighting of the year for me...let me start from the beginning.

I had just ran my first half Marathon and as a result had massive blisters to show for it (and a few missing toenails).

Needless to Say this meant that for the first few days of my camping trip I stayed REALLY close to my site as moving was a challenge. Well what does a person to do when they stuck? Why read their bird book of course!

I decided to try to familiarize myself with some of the birds that might be in the area...there was no way to memorize but you never know what will stick.



Anyhoo! We decided to attempt a local hiking trail and as we're walking along I happen to notice a YB sapsucker fly to a tree. I also notice another bird with him. He's black. In the back of my mind I'm thinking OMG that's one of those black woodpeckers (3 toed or BB).

I snap away not really figuring to get anything because all of a sudden there was a full on battle for the tree between the two.

These were the only 3 pictures I got, but as you can see they're clearly good enough to help support my ID!


I think the thing that made this so exciting for me was what I'd read about them the day before...

"These guys are hard to find despite being widespread, due to the fact that they most often are found in areas of burned forest.

They dine almost exclusively on wood-boring beetles that occur after outbreaks of fire...and as a result have been greatly affected by our forestry programs."

And I got to see one. It doesn't get better than that.