This afternoon Susan and I were installing another bird bath when she asked what that weird call was coming form the woods in front of our house. We grabbed our binoculars which were on a table next to where we take breaks and headed for the other side of the house. The bird was calling repeatedly which made it easy to locate in the top of some old-growth Red Alders as a couple of Steller's Jays were chasing it around the tree tops. It perched a couple of times long enough for us to see a large red cap on a black bodied woodpecker with a white throat and belly with a dark band across the chest. In flight the white wing patches and rump were easy to see, from the amount of red on the cap we believe it was a male. I am quite familiar with these distinctive looking birds and was not expecting to ever see one at our place as we are about two miles from the nearest Oregon White Oak forest although we have had Lewis's Woodpeckers here three times in the last 48 years.. A new Skamania County bird for me. Wilson Cady
Columbia River Gorge, WA
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