As I left the house yesterday morning, I heard a bird call that I could best describe as three short screams (they sounded like human screams) in a row. I looked up into a tree and saw a dark lump that I figured was probably a starling being funny, but then it flew over to a telephone pole and revealed itself very clearly to be a woodpecker of some sort.

Unfortunately, it was severly backlit, so that I couldn't make out any details of the plumage, just the outline. It was smaller than a robin, so I figured it was probably a Downy. When I got home I looked up the Downy and determined that the three-scream call I heard was all wrong.

Red-breasted Sapsuckers are reported to sometimes meow like cats. Maybe that's what it was. Has anyone else heard this three-scream call from a small woodpecker?

Nick Pharris
Olympia, WA
NJPharris at aol.com