{ image from Prince William Conservation Alliance }
Tim’s New Year’s resolution this year was to join Project FeederWatch, a birdwatcher data-collection project run by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology. Project FeederWatch helps scientists collect large amounts of information so they can track bird populations and understand, among other things, why a species is declining and make recommendations for its recovery before it’s too late.
So this weekend Tim dutifully recorded his weekend counts and was happily surprised by the appearance of the majestic pileated woodpecker, which is best described as part woodpecker and part pterodactyl.
The video is super short, but you get an idea of how cool this bird is. To get the full effect, hum the Jurassic Park theme song while you’re watching!
(video)
Wow, what fun. You were visited by the dinosaurs. I’ve seen one too, but off in a tree so it didn’t seem as big and awkward.
I guess they’re not that uncommon in our parts. And they’re really loud! I think a lot of people who haven’t seen pileated woodpeckers have definitely heard them.
They are beautiful birds but please don’t send them my way, they love our cedar house, not a good thing!
I’ll try to keep our birds here in the woods. I hear you about the cedar though. We had a yellow-bellied sapsucker pecking on our aluminum gutters a few years ago – drove the Golden Retriever crazy at 5:30 every morning for about a week. It sounded like a machine gun, and if you poked your head outside at that time, you could hear another one across the valley pecking in reply.
Love it! How often will you submit bird count, Tim?
I do counts on consecutive days with the pair of days at least 7 days apart from count to count. They run the Feederwatch program from Nov 9th through Apr 4th, and I just started a week ago. It’s pretty cool:
http://feederwatch.org/about/
I was so excited to read your post ~ I went on a Bird Walk on Saturday and saw my first Pileated Woodpecker. I got a photo but it’s from a great distance and I had no idea what it looked like up close. Your photo is gorgeous!
Audrey, how cool that you got to see one! There’s really something special about these birds. I can’t take credit for the photo–Tim did his best to get a good shot, but it was difficult through the screen. And I really wanted people to see how amazing they look! There’s a copyright on the photo, but maybe it’s too hard to see…