Pileated Woodpecker
Brandywine Creek Watershed, Delaware.
In classic Pileated fashion, this male (note the the red mustache stripe) announced his approach with loud calls, from tree to tree, before landing nearby. Like many of their smaller woodpeckers cousins, these birds can seem shy and retiring at one moment and then all flash and sass the next; their large size only exaggerates these characteristics. In the rare cases when they are not loudly calling, Pileateds can be identified at a distance from movement alone: the big, soft, bouncing flight, the “nailed-it” landing, and the confident way they scamper straight or spiraling up a large tree trunk.