The Pileated Woodpecker is the largest North American woodpecker with a length of up to twenty inches and wingspan of thirty inches. They are non-migratory and are found in mature forests across North America with a broader range in the east than the west. Their diet is primarily ants which they extract from hollowed trees however they also readily eat suet, sunflower seeds, nuts & fruit. Pileated Woodpeckers are known for the large rectangular holes they drill into trees with amazing speed and power. If you look closely at a Pileated designed hole you will notice that they round off the outer edges of the hole in order for the tree sap to run on the outside of the tree which wards off predators such as snakes. The tree cavities they nest in often have many exit holes (up to sixteen) which provides multiple escape routes should a predator enter the nest (which is very possible due to the size of the holes created by a Pileated Woodpecker). Pileated Woodpeckers are quite territorial and each monogamous pair require a large territory of up to forty acres, so its not often you see more than two adults at the same time. It is estimated that the North American population of Pileated Woodpeckers is 930,000. It is amazing we dont see them more often.
The Pileated Woodpecker in this post is an adult female and is the first and only Pileated Woodpecker I’ve ever photographed. It was only in sight for about thirty seconds and only provided a nice profile for a second or two. Unfortunately it was shot when it was very overcast, resulting in a blown out white sky. Normally I would just delete a shot like that however as it was my first Pileated Woodpecker I just couldn’t do it! In an attempt to salvage the shot so I could post it here, I changed the sky in the background. This brings up a whole other ‘issue’ that is much talked about in nature photography circles, namely how much post processing is acceptable? The views on this topic are many and varied so if you would like to express an opinion regarding image manipulation please click here to go to the discussion section of my Facebook page.
Other woodpecker images can be seen by clicking here
Virtually everyone these days seems to have an iPhone in their pocket, or perhaps some lesser smartphone like a Black Berry or Android. Actually this statement isn’t too far from the truth as I read this week that it is predicted that there will be 30,000,000 cell phones activated in Canada by 2013 and that the market penetration of smartphones will increase to 50% by that time (from 32% in 2010). So it seems that soon everyone in Canada will have a cell phone and half of them will be smartphones.
The versatility of smartphones is amazing and they can even be used effectively in nature photography. The camera phones are sporting processors with 5-7 megapixels which rival those of professional DSLR bodies of only a decade ago (I know…. that’s like comparing apples & oranges however the point is image quality is great in today’s smartphones).
So next time you are out for a trail walk, take your iPhone and have fun with it. Talking pictures is far more enjoyable than catching up on your email. Take some bird seed and it wont be long before the chickadees will find you. Put you camera on your wrist, some seeds in your hand and practice your timing to take the picture. The camera phones can focus to very short distances so just snap away.
The technique resulted in this image, taken at Halls Road in Ajax.
Don’t forget to have your camera phone ready when you see the big animals as well, however when you take ‘full frame’ shots of a Moose with your iPhone you are probably too close to the moose. This image was taken on the Mizzy Lake Trail in Algonquin Park.
Taking videos with smartphones is also a lot of fun and certainly helps capture the memories of the day. Here is a friend of mine providing the most expensive perch I’ve ever seen used for taking pictures of Chickadees with an iPhone 🙂
Yesterday morning provided the opportunity to photograph three new bird species; the Pileated Woodpecker, Common Redpoll and Evening Grosbeak. If all goes well they will be posted on the website in the next couple of days. If you want to read new blog posts as soon as they are posted please click the Orange RSS feed button on the top right side of this post. You can then have my blog sent to your Google Homepage, Google Reader or any number of other subscription readers that you prefer.
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