BIRD NEWS:505

I took a lot of woodpecker photos - to make sure I had at least one good one, ending up with far too many that actually did turn out reasonably well or very well. I went around the back of the exhibit and still kept taking them, not knowing....

I do hope I am not boring my readers with multiple woodpecker pictures - perhaps I ought to share some information about the species while I share the last few photos that I took.

One way to tell a greater spotted from lesser spotted is to look at the rump - red is greater, white is lesser. Another way is the plumage - the greater spotted has a white stripe on black wing whereas the lesser spotted has bars of black and white. A third way is the size - the greater is bigger than the lesser. The green woodpecker has a greenish back/wings. you can clearly see this is a greater-spotted by its wing and rump.

The next area I viewed was the waterfall area - where the merganzers live. Next up was supposedly a shot of young merganzers with parents - but they ducked/moved out of shot! I did manage to catch a shot of one parent a little later though.

Ending up with something different - I spotted a pair of ducks. They look like tarted up punks to me, but - alas, when looking for a board to tell me what they actually were, I realized I had already passed it if they had one - so they remain a colorful mystery - unless anyone can tell me the species.