Subject: [Tweeters] My "Woodpecker Big Year"
Date: Tue Apr 14 11:02:42 PDT 2020
From: Denny Granstrand - dgranstrand at gmail.com

Hi Tweeters,

My wife, Chris, and I took our travel trailer on a ten-week southern
journey in January. We had taken the trailer to Redding, CA in November and
stored it. We picked it up on Dec. 31, 2019 and moved it to an RV park,
where we de-winterized it and stocked it with groceries.

The trip took us south and east through California, Arizona, New Mexico,
Texas and Louisiana. The farthest east we went was Big Branch Marsh NWR
near Lacombe, LA. It was not necessarily a birding trip, though I did a
fair amount of birding. I submitted 115 lists to eBird and took many, many
photos. The species list for the trip was about 250.

The thought of doing a woodpecker big year (seeing how many species of
woodpeckers I could see on 2020) didn't occur to be until nearly half way
through the trip. We who live in Yakima County are lucky because eleven
species of woodpeckers nest here. The other eleven species that nest in
North America can be found on the southern route that Chris and I had
mapped out for our trip. My rule for the big year was to see *and* photograph
every species of woodpecker.

The first two nights that we spent in Redding preparing our trailer, we
stayed in a La Quinta Inn. On Jan. 1, I opened the curtains in our room and
saw a Nuttall's Woodpecker in an evergreen tree across the parking lot.
Woodpecker #1!

I had a "want list" for the trip: to get my first photos of Red-cockaded
Woodpecker, better photos of Red-headed Woodpecker and my first photo of
Brown Thrasher. I accomplished all three!

We had reserved spots in state parks, a regional park and a few RV parks,
plus Big Bend National Park, before we left home. Most stays were 3-5
nights. We had one-night stands in numerous RV parks when we were traveling
from one area to another. It takes a while to get to and across Texas, for
instance. We had a nice visit with our son and his family in Cedar Park,
TX, a highlight of the trip, of course.

Tips for RV travelers: El Chorro Regional Park north of San Luis Obispo, CA
is very nice. State parks in Louisiana have the nicest restrooms with free
showers and even have a free laundry with nice washers and dryers. State
parks in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisana have power and water for RVs
but no drains.That is inconvenient if you stay longer than three nights,
especially if you like to take a shower every night. You end up managing
water usage more than seems necessary.

The highlights: 1) Red-headed Woodpecker on two trails in Sam Houston Jones
SP in Louisiana, one which posed nicely for photos. 2) Red-cockaded
Woodpeckers (RCWO) on the Boy Scout Road Trail in Big Branch Marsh NWR in
Louisiana. We had hiked the entire trail through a long-leaf pine forest
without finding one, though we did see five armadillos. When we got back to
the parking lot, Chris said she could hear woodpeckers calling and
tapping on trees just west of the parking lot. I had played the RCWO call
for her several times because her ears are way better than mine, so she
knew what to listen for. I walked across the parking lot and could hear
them, too. Luckily, there was a boardwalk going out the SW corner of the
parking lot and into a marsh. Two RCWOs were working in trees right above
the boardwalk! 3) In Phoenix, AZ we went to the Musical Instrument Museum.
It is fantastic! It is rated the top attraction in Phoenix and one of the
top 15 museums in the U.S. I was hit with musical instrument overload at
about 2:30 and went outside to explore the beautifully-planted grounds and
neighborhood. I found a pair of Gilded Flickers, the last of the southern
woodpeckers I needed, in trees near the museum. That was the sixteenth
species of woodpecker I had seen on the trip. I was able to get photos of
fourteen of those species. The last six species needed for my woodpecker
big year, plus the two I still needed photos of, can be found in Yakima
County.

On March 25, thanks to a tip from Andy Stepniewski, I found and
photographed an American Three-toed Woodpecker, the 22nd species of
woodpecker I had seen in 2020, thus completing one portion of my big
woodpecker year. I still needed a photo of a Pileated Woodpecker, though.

Yesterday, on another tip from Andy, I went to the White Pass summit and
found, along with four species of woodpeckers, Kerry Turley. We birded
together for a while, keeping a safe distance from each other, of course.
Shortly after Kerry left, two Pileated Woodpeckers flew across the highway
and landed at the bottom of a tree right in front of me and one of them
posed for photos! It took about 3 1/2 months to complete my "Woodpecker Big
Year".

I have a folder on my website (the link is below) with photos of my
woodpecker big year. The photos are shown in order of the date I saw each
species of woodpecker. The location and date of the sighting are in the
caption. If I didn't get a photo at the first sighting, I list the place
and date I got the photo. Here's the link:

http://www.granstrand.net/gallery/mywoodpeckerbigyear

Denny Granstrand

* * * * * * * * * * * *
Denny Granstrand
Yakima, WA
dgranstrand AT gmail.com
Denny Granstrand's bird photos can be seen at:

www.granstrand.net/gallery/
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