The woodpecker shown in the following photos has a red head so it must be a Red-headed Woodpecker, right? Wrong!
This is a Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus), probably a male, spotted on 29 February 2016 at River Towers Condominiums, Fairfax County, Virginia USA.
Red-bellied Woodpeckers are relatively common, unlike some of their red-headed counterparts including Pileated Woodpecker and Red-headed Woodpecker, to name a couple.
By the way, did you catch the significance of the title of this post? I shot the photos on “Leap Day 2016.”
Copyright © 2016 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.
Tags: Melanerpes carolinus, Red-bellied Woodpecker, River Towers Condominiums, wildlife photography
walter sanford's photoblog 
March 10, 2016 at 6:27 am |
You won’t be able recycle your “leap” humor for another four years, Walter. For better or worse, most of my humor gets used more often. Seriously, though, I remember well my initial difficulties in bird identification–sometimes the names just did not match what I was seeing (like a female Red-winged Blackbird that is not black and does not have red wings). Now that I have seen Red-headed Woodpeckers, I don’t confuse them with their Red-bellied brethren, but I know that I made that mistake when I was a newbie.