Colliers Mills 3/18--Red-Headed Woodpecker

The birding year just doesn't feel quite right until I track down a Red-headed Woodpecker in Colliers Mills which I did this rainy morning.  With a dire forecast of heavy rain all day, I got there figuring I had about an hour of searching before the wet weather moved in, so I eschewed my usual route around Turnmill Pond and went directly to the woods north of the now-burnt fields on Success Road. The prescribed burning certainly made for easier walking in there than I usually encounter and with all the deciduous trees still denuded, there were many good sight lines. This was countered by the heavy overcast that hung over the woods--everything was either black (the burned ground) or gray (the tree trunks). Even the couple of Eastern Bluebirds I saw looked washed out and monotone, the color of shirt cardboard. I walked a crooked mile and got fooled a couple of times by one or two Red-bellied Woodpeckers which would fly onto a tree trunk in front of me, but after a while I saw a RHWO zip by me, its white rump brilliant and diagnostic in the murk. 

Now, could I get a picture? Obviously, yes, but it wasn't easy as this bird seemed more restless than most. Usually, I find, a Red-headed Woodpecker will find a tree it likes and stay put, pounding away at the bark and your photographic problem is to find the right angle to take the shot. But this one apparently couldn't find a tree to its satisfaction as it flew around the area, disappearing behind a trunk or getting lost in a tangle of branches high up in the crown of a tree. Looking at the track eBird keeps, my stalking of the bird looks very much like the path a drunk would take trying to find his way out of the woods. But eventually the bird perched long enough on one tree for me to get a few pictures, not exactly award winners in the dim light, but good enough for this blog. 

By then, the rain had started in earnest (and also in Jackson). I toughed it out for a little while, walking over to the Turnmill to check out the waterfowl (mostly Ring-necked Ducks) but looking at "tweety-birds" in the woods through rain-splattered binoculars is never any fun and after an hour or so I gave it up, figuring I had my "one good bird" for the day.