By Mary Reid Barrow

A red-headed woodpecker in its good looking red, black and white coat perched at the top of a snag in first Landing State Park as if it were posing for the folks on the road below.

The beauty took center stage for a few moments and stole the scene from the osprey that were front and center on LRNow’s annual osprey walk along the park’s road and trail to the Narrows.

It was as if the woodpecker knew that photographer Susan O’Connell was in the group with her camera and it allowed her to take this striking photo.

The red-headed woodpecker’s appearance was a special treat. Though they are year-round residents, they are not seen often. Even though the wetland around the trail is prime habitat, the birds are not visible every time I walk there. On the other hand, I don’t believe I have seen one anywhere else in years.

Robert Brown, who led the osprey walk, said he also sees the woodpeckers off and on along that trail, especially in the marshy areas.

“They seem to like ‘marginal’ habitats,” Robert said.

According to All About Birds, that great website produced by the Cornell Ornithology Lab, the red-headed’s habitat has been declining over the years because dead and dying trees, like many of the trees in the trail along the marsh in the park, also have declined.

Red-headeds often catch their dinner on the wing. Softer, dying wood not only makes it easy for the woodpeckers to excavate their tree-hole nest cavities but also to store  their food in crevices and under the bark of the soft wood.

According to Cornell, “Grasshoppers are regularly stored alive, but wedged into crevices so tightly that they cannot escape.”

The red-headed’s beauty must instill this warrior temperament in their psyches. Not only are they voracious predators, they also are bold and brazen in other ways.

According to Cornell, the woodpeckers are “fierce defenders of their territory.” They will even break or remove eggs from the nests of other species of birds unfortunate enough to nest in the area.

Robert said that he also recalls photographing two of the red-headeds in a territorial dispute of their own. “They engaged in a very high-speed chase hither and thither.”

But you’d never know this other side to see the nature of that calm beauty perched in a tree for all of us. It even made a dead tree beautiful!

Check All About Birds to find out more about this fascinating bird: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-headed_Woodpecker/overview