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The gray afternoon brightened a bit for me today
when I saw the Lewis's Woodpecker again on a telephone pole in the 1500 block of
Shadow Valley Drive in Ogden. The bird was working hard to excavate a
pre-existing crack in the top of the pole. Small yellow woodchips peppered
the snow at the base. I take this as a sign that the woodpecker is
preparing a winter caching location for nuts and fruits and it's going to stick
around. This is the fifth time I've seen it in the last 2 weeks or
so.
The woodpecker also scooped up great beaks full of
snow from the inch or two stacked on top of the pole and smacked its mandibles
together as if relishing the drink. It dipped deeply into the snow
and turned its head toward me as I watched from the street below. So much
snow clung to its face around the beak that the bird looked like it had taken a
whipped cream pie-in-the-face. Looked to me like the Lewis's could give
the Acorn Woodpecker a run for its money in a competition for the
descriptive term, "clown-faced woodpecker".
Kris
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