Sunday, November 7, 2010

Red-bellied Woodpecker

While in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, I had three sightings of a Red-bellied Woodpecker, two of which I was able to some photos. The first was at Olmsted Park. I only got a quick glimpse of it through my camera lens, but it was enough for me to be pretty sure of its identity.
Then later I got a much better view as seen in the upper two images above. It was fairly high up in the tree and had a bright canopy of rear lit leaves in the background, but I managed to get images that allowed a positive identification.
Finally, I got some closer, less obstructed views as seen in the bottom image, but I could never get a shot of its face. I did, however, get a good shot of its back.
There are times that the only way I have been able to identify a difficult bird is via bits and pieces of it obstructed by leaves and branches in multiple images, but the sum total of all of them gives me enough information to identify the bird. That was not the case here, but the combination of images gives a more complete representation of its physical characteristics.

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