American three-toed woodpecker - a new species for me!


I am pretty sure this is the three-toed woodpecker, probably a juvenile, that is about to send a berry down the hatch.  I got quite a few shots of it, and although it isn't quite like the images I see in my birding book or online, I think that this is the only identification that works.  It was clearly a woodpecker as I saw it vertically climbing a tree trunk by leaping in short bits at a time.  The white line beneath the eye is also somewhat distinctive of the species, although the back feathers did not have the white stripe clearly seen in others.  You can see some of the white back feathers in the image below.


The tree that it was on may have been a favourite.  There were lots of holes in it; these birds apparently do not make deep excavations the way some woodpeckers do.  They also tend to spend a lot of time on a single tree rather than flitting around from one to another.  I don't know if the holes on the tree were from it or from a sapsucker.  According to the All About Birds website, "In some areas, Three-toed Woodpeckers dig small sapwells in trees and drink the sap that flows, much as sapsuckers do."  Click here to see the link.

Apparently, there are three subspecies of this woodpecker, the northwestern race having a blacker back than the other two.  If so, that may explain the feathering of the individual, or that it is a juvenile, or perhaps a combination of the two.  Without the experience of seeing more, it is hard to say.

I wonder why it is that I haven't seen them before.  They are apparently fairly common.  Perhaps I will see another soon in the future; something to look forward to for sure.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com


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