Looking like some kind of ground dwelling grouse or the like, here we see a nice head on shot of a female pileated woodpecker. It’s not unusual to see these spectacular birds foraging on the ground like this, especially around old rotting tree stumps or fallen logs, but ideally they much prefer to be searching on the side of a tree for their food. I learnt recently that pileated woodpeckers officially became the largest woodpecker in North America in 2021, following the sad announcement that the ‘Ivory-billed’ woodpecker was officially declared extinct. For anyone interested in seeing a short video of the Ivory-billed woodpecker check out this ‘All About Birds’ link at the Cornell lab.
