Beautiful morning so I wandered around my local patch (Volunteer Park,
Seattle) not expecting to find much.

I did find a male Pileated Woodpecker flying around the north end of
the park, not being bothered by the crows by landing in tree tops
already occupied with a couple of crows. He settled down on a
(Yellow?) Pine snag north-east of the Women's toilets near the fence
and started to dig a cavity just a couple of feet of the ground. He
appeared to be feeding on items found in the snag. He flew off to the
north-east over the cemetery.

A few minutes later I heard a Pileated Woodpecker calling to the south
and west of that location and found him in the trees to the west of
the main road. Not sure if it was the same bird (looping around from
the cemetary ... but I didn't see him) or a second bird. This male
Pileated Woodpecker was hammering, chipping batk and moving around a
few trees. Eventually flew off to the south-west.

Nice extended views in both cases. And especially appropriate as I'm
reading Tanner's monograph on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker at the moment.

Following him around he lead me to another small woodpecker hitching
up a deciduous tree trunk (being closel watched by a hovering Anna's
Hummingbird too) that turned out to be a male Red-breasted Sapsucker.
I was rather surprised as I associated seeing these with irruptions
with cold weather. Not great views but clear enough to show a mostly
red head and throat (didn't see the breast).

It's curious that I saw a Pileated Woodpecker at the Fill last week.
And someone else saw a Red-breasted Sapsucker there yesterday. Curious.
--
Kevin Purcell
kevinpurcell at pobox.com
twitter: at kevinpurcell