Pileated Woodpecker Visits the Backyard !

Video:  Pileated Woodpecker Visits the Backyard !

A big Pileated Woodpecker stopping by the Backyard for a quick meal is always exciting! Camera work a little shaky at long range through the glass this time. I purposely let the long leaf pine tree that was blown down in a hurricane back in 2005 remain leaning on the backyard fence. It is now infested with bugs under the bark and starting to decay and should be a real magnet for woodpeckers etc. in the future. I'm going to set up the game camera there and see what i capture on film!

To see a real close up of a Pileated making amazing calls from last year about this same time check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glGpBragTs8

Amazing Pileated Woodpecker Calls

Video:  Pileated Woodpecker Visits the Backyard !

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17th Annual Florida Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival January 22-27 2014

Florida's "Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival" starts January 22nd in Titusville, Florida. Its one of the largest such shows in the U.S. With some luck attendees will spot the most colorful songbird in all of North America, the Painted Bunting, which winters in the Space Coast of Florida. Generally holding in dense thickets of oaks and even Brazilian Pepper scrub they are very hard to spot in the wild away from backyard feeders. One of my favorites is the Brown Thrasher, another bird that generally holds to dense scrub thickets. It is also woodpecker season and while its always exciting to see the Downy Woodpeckers and the giant Pileated Woodpeckers - your goal should be to spot the exceedingly rare Red Cockaded Woodpecker. Of course raptors in wide open spaces and shorebirds and water birds by the score are a given! Come on down.

Video: Painted Buntings

Video: Brown Thrasher

Female Downy Woodpecker Calling

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Pileated Woodpecker Calls

Pileated Woodpeckers Visit the Backyard - Amazing Woodpecker Calls!

Pileated Woodpeckers Visit the Backyard - Amazing Woodpecker Calls!

Video of Close-Up of Male Pileated Woodpecker

Male Pileated Woodpecker

It  always exciting when Pileated Woodpeckers made a rare and raucous  visit to the backyard. so I was delighted to hear loud calls and got my camera and an extended capture of a male. The other two - one of which was a female made continuous calls for about 5 minutes while the male calmly pecked for food. They may have been a family unit but kept to heavy brush as is their nature and I couldn't see them clearly, but you can hear them on the video carrying on for over five minutes. Do not know what the significance of the calling was, but I suspect it was the parents and a newly fledged young pileated. Like Blue Jays they have a tendency not to keep a low profile when they are taking out their kids for the first time.  Very few birds get me as excited as the sudden raucous appearance of the Pileateds! And to get them away from a feeder in a natural setting is hard to do - they rarely stay still very long. 
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