Tag: Pileated Woodpecker

PIE-lay-ted…by Brad Marks

Hi folks! We said farewell to Vegas and made our way west again. We had a list of things planned for our stay in the desert, but somehow that city has the ability to crumble up itineraries and set them on fire – this year that was almost literal as the day temps went to 109 and beyond. Ended up being a daily scramble thanks to some RV repairs, additional time spent hunting birds I thought would be easy checks and then a host of other things that gobbled up the time. I am sure we will get back there before too long – note to self, allow more time! On the bright side, birding has been outstanding – 109+1 annual birds since start of the trip, 43 of those being lifers. That puts me at 409+4 for the year – a personal record and we are still relatively early in the year. Oh, an that puts me at #211 in the US Top 100 Birders standings. The downside is the field days have been long and the gravitational force of the pillow strong – my apologies for the delay in responding to comments (I promise to remedy that as soon as I can) and now I will be out of pocket for a bit as we have a family event to take in. Fortunately, Brad is always at the ready to bring you another of their adventures and today’s feature is one of my favorite local feathered friends.

The pillow beckons, take it away Brad…

A couple of years ago, Jan and I were driving on our first trip to Hilton Head Island to escape a week of February winter in Illinois.  We decided to drive to take all of our camera gear.  Driving to Hilton Head takes 16+ hours from where we live, so we broke the trip into two days.  The first night we stayed in Asheville, NC to could go to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner, the Tupelo Honey Café. We were not disappointed.  On the second day, we planned to stop at Congaree National Park in South Carolina we found on a poster our daughter Allyson gave us when we retired.  When we go to a new park, we can cross it off the poster, checklist style.  The park poster contains some of the biggest National Parks (Yosemite and Yellowstone) and some of the lesser-known parks as well.  That’s where we found ourselves.

When we finally arrived at Congaree, we were quickly rewarded with a bit of humor.  There was a sign saying the park wide speed limit was 27 MPH.  Not 25 MPH or 30 MPH, but 27 MPH!  How cool is that!  Arriving at the small parking lot, Merlin was telling us there were many birds in the trees, if only we could see them.  I learned much later that Congaree National Park is one of the nation’s top spots to see very large firefly displays during late May and into June.

When I had finished assembling my camera (Jan was already off taking photos), a family was wandering by from their distant parking space.  The grandfather in the group, seeing the big cameras, asked if I’d seen a specific bird pointing to the other end of the parking lot.  Sometimes the local names and pronunciations of words can catch me off-guard.  British English and American English often have different syllables emphasized.  But when American English (Midwestern) and American English (Southern) collide, I sometimes have no idea where to start.

Here’s where I have to go to phonetic spelling because my ear was simply not tuned into Southern English so early in our trip.  Absolutely no offense intended, things are pronounced differently all around our country.  Pronunciations in the Northeast are sometimes the hardest because they remove certain letters and add them to the ends of other words.  For example, the phrase “park the car” becomes “pahk the cah”.  But the word “area” becomes “airy-er”.  See what I mean? 

Pileated Woodpecker for by Brad Marks in South Carolina

In any dialect or accent, that’s a BIG bird! Hit the jump to read more about the PIE!

Continue reading PIE-lay-ted…by Brad Marks

Reach Out and Grab It

The “Month of Variety” is coming to a close.  This is a good thing for me because the bird pictures are really starting to stack up as of late.  I’ve had a number of local encounters this month that I’m really happy about and Linda and I have been out on additional bird shoots that have have netted some nice opportunities as well.  Speaking of which, today’s shoot was unbelievably FRUSTRATING – well at least one large chunk of it.  We had been up and down the Mississippi River for most of the morning checking out whatever water birds we could locate.  While visiting a nature center at of the sites we came across a birding pamphlet that indicated the Pileated Woodpecker was COMMON in the particular area we were, Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall.  Let me restate that – they are COMMON to the area.  Needless to say, we tracked down a wooded nature preserve and headed right for it.  By headed right to it, I mean, drove all over the place trying to find it including backtracking like crazy trying to locate it.  Unbeknownst to us at the time this was going to be the theme for our prized Woodpecker hunt.  Eventually we located it and headed out on one of the trails.  Mental note, next time take a better look at the map.  In our haste to get the shot, we failed to set a proper course.  About 20 minutes into the trek we heard it!  You can’t mistake the sound of a Pileated Woodpecker.  Sure enough, about 5 minutes later it flew high over our heads and lighted quite some distance deeper into the woods.  In hindsight we should have just tracked it down, but instead we decided to continue on the trail back to the car.  An hour plus later we were lost thanks to absolutely pathetic trail markers.  It was awful, but eventually we found the proper trail and started our trek out.  At one point I joked to Linda that there will probably be 5 Pileateds sitting in the tree next to our car when we returned.  That didn’t come to fruition when we staggered out of the woods.  We got in the car and left dejected.  About .3 miles out of the park that damn Pileated (assuming at this point it was the same) flew past our windshield and into the trees by the side of the road.  By the time Linda got the car stopped and I got out it had disappeared again AAAARRRRGGHHHH!!!  All that work, 2 sightings and NOTHING to show for it.

But that really wasn’t the topic for today’s post.  Instead I am going with some shots that we took during our Mackinaw Island trip back in 2012.

It was actually a gorgeous night on July 3rd.  We were in the area to catch the Fourth of July celebrations.  As with our previous visit, we opted to stay on the mainland rather than fight the hassle with the shuttles.  The hotel we were staying at was on the lake complete with beach.   As the day was coming to an end, the full moon decide to grace us shrouded in a breathtaking orange.  The Harvest Moon shots in the previous post was what reminded me about these shots.

There is something about a serene water setting that completely relaxes you.  No more worrying about work or fretting about tasks to get done at home, just living in the now with the best nature has to offer.  I was standing out in the water enjoying the scene when Linda took this shot.  Was I thinking deep philosophical thoughts, the foundation of our existence or maybe the downfall of the greatest country in the world thanks to socialist agendas?

Hit the jump to see the answer.

Continue reading Reach Out and Grab It

A Prized Pecker

This week I’ve been focused on avoiding ANY activity that would cause some form of injury up to and including the very painful hangnail.  That means no working on Project Auuuunooollldd, no work to shore up Serenity, no constructing the new mailbox support structure and definitely no cleaning tubs or vacuuming (long story but that one cost me major damage to the shoulder some time ago).  Oh, and doing dishes and cleaning up after myself is right out (hehehe).  What’s left with all the fun stuff banned… well, you blog.  You probably already noticed I am way ahead of schedule at the moment, but sitting and typing is about the safest activity I can pick.  Luckily, the post topic hopper is pretty full.

I promised you a break from Henderson, but that didn’t mean you were free from birds.  This post has been on my mind ever since the day before we headed out to Vegas.  That Saturday a friend of ours (John Best) put a post on Facebook that he might have heard a Pileated Woodpecker while hiking out at Forest Park Nature Preserve.  The minute Linda relayed that message to me we were headed for the car with the Beast in hand.  If you are new to the blog, the Pileated Woodpecker was on the TOP of my bird wish list.  John’s wife actually thought she had seen one at our house one day but I originally dismissed it based on the mere fact I had NEVER seen or heard one in the area from the day we bought the land.  Not to long after that I was busy apologizing to her because one flew into our yard one cold Sunday morning.  That was followed by chasing that damn bird through our entire 15 acres trying to get a decent shot .. big failure on that endeavor – did I mention I was in my jammies at the time (Linda had quite the laugh).  My only other sighting of this bird was in the Porcupine Mountains (link here .. at the bottom).  Once again unable to get it in the tin so no checkmark.   Very frustrating, but maintained hope that one day I’d be able to shoot it.

So, there Linda and I were standing in the park trying our best to locate a large black bird with a red head.  Look to the left, look to the right, look up, look down, walk a ways and repeat.  Nuttin’!  Beginning to think John might have been mistaken we were just about to give up when we heard a loud call ring out from atop the hill to our left.  Pileated Woodpeckers have unmistakable calls that rivals the Sandhill Crane squabbles.  I need to stop doubting the Bests, that’s for sure.  Only problem was finding a way to it.  This isn’t a free ranging park and there didn’t seem to be any paths leading up in that direction.  A huge relief when we found a winding trail further down the main path.  The hunt was on.  Halfway up we stopped for a bit to wait for another call.  5 or 10 minutes later we heard it again this time followed by a jackhammer pounding against wood.  Of course, it was coming from the top of the hill so we continued our climb up the steep hill – kudos to Linda for sticking with me. Once at the top we started a more thorough scan.  all of sudden we see movement from a large black bird…

Ladies and gentleman, I introduce you to the reason for a very prestigious check mark.  There it was in all its glory, the long sought after Pileated Woodpecker.  The tree canopy put the Beast at a disadvantage both in the lighting conditions and the amount of interference.  The ISO was jacked up to provide enough shutter speed to keep most of the blurring down and there was a lot of foot focus going on in desperate attempts to get a straight line of sight to the bird.

This guaranteed there would be no gallery shots, but definitely good enough to qualify for a check mark.  You should have seen the blurred shot I got while running around our lot in my PJs – you could tell it was black and had some reddish in it, but saying it was a bird was reach.  Linda probably thought I was a kid in a candy store running up and down the trail trying to get as many shots as I could.

Hit the jump to read more about the prized Pileated Woodpecker

Continue reading A Prized Pecker