Emerging from the Tunnel

My sister-in-law Lorie told us awhile back that winter here is like going into a tunnel then coming out in four or five months.  This week it really felt like we were squirted from the tunnel, with the temperature reaching 76 degrees yesterday.  The frogs are sunning themselves on the edges of the goldfish pond, the first swallows showed up yesterday, the hummingbirds have returned, the Varied Thrushes  are buzzing, and ducks are pairing up as they swim up the river.  I was excited yesterday, as

I finally got some decent photos of a Pileated Woodpecker.  They are infrequent visitors, and they usually move around before you can get a camera out.

This is a male Pileated Woodpecker as he has a red chin stripe. There was a second one on this tree, also, but it flew away shortly after I spotted them.  Pileateds are North America's largest woodpecker, with a body about the size of a crow.

They eat insects and drill large rectangular holes in dead trees to get them or to make a cavity nest.