The most elusive of the birds that reside in the Wind River Canyon are Woodpeckers.  You can hear them hammering on a pine tree, yet never see one for yourself.  I've heard their distinctive rhythmic drumming, and never got to meet the band's drummer.  It's frustrating for a wildlife photographer or birder to even get a glimpse of a woodpecker in Mother Nature.  So my advice has always been to "just keep your eyes open."  Never let down your attention when you are out in the woods, and just maybe you can see what all the racket is about, if you are really lucky.

     There are twenty-two breeding species of woodpecker in North America; 215 species on this planet.  I Downy Woodpecker (f)-Wind River Canyon, WyomingDowny Woodpecker in Wind River Canyon, Wyoming. have only photographed three different species here in the Wind River Canyon.  The Hairy Woodpecker and the Downy Woodpecker are the two species that are very easily confused in Wyoming.  The third being the distinctly different Red-shafted Flicker, which are abundant and easier to identify.  

     The Downy Woodpecker is the smallest of the woodpeckers in America, but look almost exactly like the larger Hairy Woodpecker.  The Downy is only about six inches in length, the Hairy is 50% larger at nine inches in length; the Downy has a much smaller beak, and white spots on it's black back.  And that, my fellow wildlife nuts, is about the only way to tell them apart.  Yet, what I find interesting is that these two woodpeckers, that look almost the same to our eyes, are not closely related genetically.  These two look-alike woodpeckers are a great example of convergent evolution; similar physical adaptation to similar environmental conditions.

     Everyone knows that woodpeckers eat bugs in trees, but the different size of their beaks mean they don't actually compete for the same food source in the same environment.  In fact, the different size of the beak in the female and male Downy Woodpecker means, even in the same species, they don't compete for the same food:  The male's larger beak allows him to "dig deeper" in the tree for insects, and this applies to the even larger beaks of the Hairy Woodpecker; they will hammer even deeper in a tree for bugs than the Downy can.  This adaptation allows two similar species to coexist in the same ecology; like here in the Wind River Canyon.

     A side fact that is fascinating - there are no woodpeckers in Australia!  Think about that one for a moment.  

     Not long ago, I had an all-too-brief encounter with a male Downy Woodpecker; only my second shoot Downy Woodpecker (m), Wind River Canyon, WyomingDowny Woodpecker (m) in Wind River Canyon, Wyoming. with a male in nearly a decade!  I glimpsed him from our kitchen window on a cedar tree.  I grabbed one of my always ready cameras, and dashed outside for a wild encounter of the woodpecker kind.  He was obviously preoccupied with digging small holes in my cedar.  I played the old hunter's trick, where I am small and invisible; lucky me it worked again.  The morning light, filtering through the pine, made the dark side of the tree come alive.  The Downy Woodpecker is known for being elusive and quick, and this little cutie was no exception.

     I worked the large RAW file, as I always do, in Canon's freebee software, then from a TIFF file I worked it again in their one-button HDR to add some bling; then on to Adobe Lightroom to give the picture more "POW" and bring out more texture of the cedar tree.  I had shot over seventy frames in about no time at all, for the one I really liked.  The burst of my Canon cameras is eight-frames-per-second, and you'll need this kind of speed in any wildlife scenario.  Don't be afraid to keep the shutter button down, that's why your camera has a crazy fps burst-mode.  The pro's use it at ball games, and you can with the kids or that jay in your bird feeder. Hairy Woodpecker, Mother & Son-Wind River Canyon,WyomingHairy Woodpeckers in Wind River Canyon, Wyoming.       I hope this is a little incentive to get outdoors and find the beautiful woodpeckers in your neck-of-the-woods; Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers can be seen in most of the U.S.  So get outside and find out who the greatest drummer really is.

Photographs and Blog by Michael John Balog - Hogbats Photography

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