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Revealed

Detail

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This month’s photo was a tough one I admit. Imagine how we felt as we watched the bird fly into the tree’s branches and disappear. It took us a few minutes of work with the bins to find and finally identify it.

Our best “bird guesser” Alison was extremely close—she identified our mystery critter as a woodpecker, which it was. However, the bird in question was not a Downy Woodpecker as she suspected, instead it was a very similar looking Ladder-backed Woodpecker (Picoides scalaris).

Ladder-backeds are smallish woodpeckers, ranging from 6 to 7 inches in length. Though much isn’t known about them, it is known that they live primarily in the deserts of the southwestern United States and Mexico, building their nests in prickly cactuses for added protection.