Day of the Woodpecker

Today was a wonderfully sunny cold day in Upstate NY with an incredibly blue sky. So I headed out to the local nature center to see if I could find some more whitetail deer out and about. I went back to where I had found them before, but didn't see a thing, so I headed over to another trail where they have been known to hang out in the past when I heard this pecking sound from down another trail. So I decided to go see what was up and as I got closer I started scanning the trees, which is when I found the beautiful pileated woodpecker just pounding away on a tree looking for breakfast. I had only seen photographs of these woodpeckers before and I was surprised at how large she was. She had to be anywhere from 12" - 16" in height and had created a couple good sized holes in the tree she was working on. I loved her colors, especially against the sky which was incredibly blue today. So after I had taken numerous shots of her and she had flown away I had kind of given up on the deer. So I headed down another trail looking for an elusive Saw-Whet Owl, but nothing, though I did find the deer. There were about seven of them down in a bog area where it was difficult to get any good shots of them. But all in all, in was a great hike today, seven deer, a pileated woodpecker and I also found a smaller yellow bellied woodpecker before I saw the deer. I was starting to think this was the day of the woodpecker! Keep on Shooting!!