Last Friday while working at the desktop I happened to glance out a nearby window which overlooks the front lawn and noticed what I initially thought were two squirrels playing near the base of a very old black walnut tree were two pileated woodpeckers! I grabbed my camera which had the 150-600 lens attached and went into an adjacent room which had a little better angle of view from its window, and quietly eased up the bottom sash enough to allow the barrel of the lens through and had fired off several rapid shots before I noticed the "E" appearing on the right side of the viewfinder and realized that I had failed to replace the memory card after using it to download some images the night before. I ran back and retrieved the card. Now again looking through the viewfinder I realized that instead of two pileated, we now had only one, plus a pair of northern yellow-shafted flickers and they were feeding on something inside of three sizable holes that they had drilled near the base of the old tree. I think that the prey were carpenter ants and the woodpeckers were feeding on the ones within the tree and apparently the ones on the ground! All images were taken from a distance of 90 feet, so moved our rolling blind (a little camper van) to shorten the distance and spent about three hours waiting the next morning with no results other than a few decent images of other small birds.

Last Friday while working at the desktop I happened to glance out a nearby window which overlooks the front lawn and noticed what I initially thought were two squirrels playing near the base of a very old black walnut tree were two pileated woodpeckers! I grabbed my camera which had the 150-600 lens attached and went into an adjacent room which had a little better angle of view from its window, and quietly eased up the bottom sash enough to allow the barrel of the lens through and had fired off several rapid shots before I noticed the "E" appearing on the right side of the viewfinder and realized that I had failed to replace the memory card after using it to download some images the night before. I ran back and retrieved the card. Now again looking through the viewfinder I realized that instead of two pileated, we now had only one, plus a pair of northern yellow-shafted flickers and they were feeding on something inside of three sizable holes that they had drilled near the base of the old tree. I think that the prey were carpenter ants and the woodpeckers were feeding on the ones within the tree and apparently the ones on the ground! All images were taken from a distance of 90 feet, so moved our rolling blind (a little camper van) to shorten the distance and spent about three hours waiting the next morning with no results other than a few decent images of other small birds.

Corky, just reading your first five words, I had to laugh... another pc adventure for you, but I'm glad you got this message to me! Sad if this old tree has limited time, but with this crazy weather, it's best you take care of it. I heard there were hail storms in some Southern states that caused massive damage... and tornado warnings, also the other day, earthquakes in Oklahoma!! They're saying we might get 12-16", but we shall see... I'm hoping they're wrong again!

Take care and hope this storm passes you by!!