I try to have a picture with each of these little messages, blogs, stories or whatever they are, but this time I was not fast enough to take one.
I was grilling butterfly pork chops and turned to go back in the RV to get a plate when I saw a large bird out of the corner of my eye. I looked up and there was a Pileated Woodpecker flying from one tree to another just about 100 feet away. I stepped inside and grabbed my Nikon D60 with a 200 mm lens on it. I walked slowly towards the tree but only got a few steps when he took off for the far beyond. No chance to get a picture.
Hopefully I will get another chance. I believe he came from the woods across the highway where I usually walk and perhaps I will catch up with him there soon. I haven't been walking over there lately because of all the rain. It is really muddy over there with the slightest rain. With the nearly constant rain for the past 3 months, it is really sloppy over there.
I have seen Pileated Woodpeckers before but this is the first one I've seen at Lake O' the Pines. A long time ago I spent a few days in Martin Dies State Park on the northern edge of the Big Thicket. They were fairly common there and I saw quite a few of them but that was years ago.
They are such an impressive bird. You won't have trouble mistaking them for another woodpecker. They are much larger. The only one that came close was the Ivory Billed Woodpecker which is very likely extinct and was about the same size. There is no comparison to the other local woodpeckers which are quite a bit smaller: Red-Headed, Red-Bellied, and Downey.
When I catch him in the lens, I will post it here and go into a little more detail about them.
The Pileated Woodpecker is the 46th bird species I have spotted here at the RV Park (and woods across the street) since I got here about 17 months ago.
NOTE: 03-04-16 I added a photo of a Pileated that I took later.
Michael is a former biologist and Texas Master Naturalist. Originally from Newsome, Texas (Between Pittsburg and Winnsboro), educated in Dallas & Garland schools, then off to the University of Texas system where he received a degree in biology and worked as a biologist with the University of Texas system. After many years away from nature and biology, he relocated to the banks of Lake O' the Pines where he has been rediscovering the joys of nature. He is somewhat surprised that he has become a birder. Most of his interest in nature was centered around reptiles. Perhaps just like birds evolved from reptiles starting in the late Jurassic, he has begun his own evolution. During his formal education, his interests in biology/nature grew to include community ecology and population studies, all with a binding of evolutionary processes. He liked birds, but they were secondary at best. All at once he finds them fascinating.
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