It started on Tuesday when Sharon called me into the office and pointed out the window at the bird bath. “What’s that bird at the bath?!” She was pointing at a big, dark bird and all we could see was its head, but that was enough. I said, “that’s a Lewis’s Woodpecker!!!” We’ve seen them in the Sierra before, rarely, they prefer the higher altitudes. We’ve seen them on the ridge above our home but never on our property. We watched it drink for a while, then it flew off behind Tree 1 and disappeared. Great bird and thought that would be the end of him as we’ve had a lot of birds come through for a quick sighting not to be seen again. But we were looking!!!
Then today it reappeared! This time, in the front at Tree 3. Being that I’d only gotten a couple of clicks of one decades ago in Montana, I wanted to very much photograph him (it’s a male). So we stayed inside and watched it through the windows. Hard to get any work done this morning as both Sharon and I were watching its every move. Now the Lewis’s Woodpecker is a big bird, the size of a flicker. And it would seem, just as shy. Now we have Red-shafted Flickers, Hairy & White-headed Woodpeckers and Red-breasted Sapsuckers nearly everyday at our feeders so we’re use to their reactions to us. We wanted to learn about the Lewis’s biology and how it would react to us so we just watched. The D4s / 800mm w/TC-1.25e were set up inside and used to watch the Lewis’s through the dual-pane windows. I need it to get comfortable with us moving around and watching it. Slow and easy wins the race! It wanted to come to the seed feeder, same as the flicker you see above (taken on the branch it kept going to). The feeder was so busy with other birds, smaller birds, that these two woodpeckers waited until it was empty to venture in. It spent a god two hours with us, last being seen as the sun set. Fingers crossed it will come back tomorrow. I didn’t want to work anyways!