Another pileated woodpecker

The red oak tree directly seen from our deck has (a relatively recent) old dead branch poking out to the right of the main trunk.

It's a magnet for woodpeckers, not surprisingly,

-- we've seen downies and red-bellied woodpeckers visiting our feeder frequently,

Since the dead branch has occurred, we've been delighted to see pileated woodpeckers foraging, too.

The tree is relatively close, but not so close that good photographic shots are easy (at least with my long "normal" lens - 18-200 and older digital camera, a venerable Nikon D100)!

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A pileated woodpecker

A Sunday morning excursion at the Garden (where I work) found us noticing a pileated woodpecker.

Its loud call is distinctive; no, that's not a hawk, I said, and then we spotted the vocalizer, a beautiful and striking bird.

Pileated woodpeckers are LARGE, the size of crows. 

And striking. 

I didn't have a camera along, but here's a link to the Cornell Lab of Lab to learn more about them.

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A pileated woodpecker

Behind my office is a Southern red oak in decline.  Limbs have been trimmed and the top has already broken, although we're not inclined to take it down just yet.

My colleague pointed out to me this morning that a pileated woodpecker was busily working a cavity high up on the trunk - what a great sight.  This is a blurry image from early morning (cropped, of course!).

It's probably a feeding cavity based on my bit of research, although I'm hardly an expert on bird behavior.  Not the time of the year for a nesting cavity, certainly, and pileated woodpeckers forage in dead and dying trees in search of a favorite prey item, carpenter ants, according to All About Birds, Cornell Ornithology Lab's online field guide site. 

Or perhaps it's foraging for some sort of other insect larvae, too.

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