Okay, smartypants birders will enjoy this: can you name the species?
Last Sunday, the photographer took this image using his new Nikon took this image in a reader's backyard in rural central Kentucky. This new Nikon had a big ol' lens that he has started calling his BOLLYlens, for Big Ol Lens Looking Yonder.
Image: Bob Tigh.
As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural world and that there is a world out there that is populated by millions of unique species. We are a part of this world whether we like it or not: we have a choice to either preserve these species or to destroy them in search of short-term monetary gains. But if we decide to destroy these other life forms, the least we can do is to know what we are destroying by learning that they exist. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be credited.
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OK, hands up: who else thought "Ivory Billed woodpecker".
Bob
I thought it was an angel of the Lord come to tell us that he loves us and wants us to hang out in the forest and eat bugs in bark and umm -- okay, the message isn't that clear. Maybe next time He could send us something less ambiguous, like an image on a cheese sandwich.
It looks like what my grandfather would have called a flicker, but then all red-headed-black-and-white woodpeckers were flickers to us. So do I get points for identifying the "kind" ala YECs?
I didn't think so ;-)
male Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens)
I think I have to agree with Albatrossity. Great photo.
Albatrossity has won the smartypants birder award. how did you distinguish it from a hairy woodpecker? and don't say beak length!
1) size of the bird relative to the size of the leaves on the tree (looks like a hackberry to me)
2) probability - in most of North America, Downy Woodpeckers are 5-10 time more abundant than Hairy Woodpeckers (check the BBS maps at
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/infocenter.html
for these species.
and finally
3) luck
downy or hairy woodpecker would be the guess... wing colours / pattern point to them as the likeliest candidate and, unfortunately, without being able to see the bill, probability is about the only way to guess which...
Looks like a male Downey...we have several pairs at my folks' house and we enjoy watching them.
Chardyspal