CIIcanoe...

Saturday, May 23, 2026

Pileated Woodpecker, Nest and a Wood Duck 05-23-26

Today, 05-23-26, I spent some time with the Pileated Woodpeckers. It was a very interesting day. I heard one of the Pileated Woodpeckers make a call in the area of the nest shortly before I arrived. I didn’t know if it had gone inside the nest or not because I couldn’t see with all the leaves on the trees. I got set-up while checking the nest hole. I heard more calling nearby and it sounded like both adults were off the nest. I walked in the direction of the sounds and spotted them. They were both flying around. It looked like they were playing. I also spotted a Wood Duck couple. Almost got a photo of the male. Walking back to my original spot I waited. The female flew within 10 yards of me and allowed me to take as many photos as I wanted. I had to back up a little since I use a telephoto with a 1.4x converter. While photographing the female Pileated she seemed to became very distracted and kept looking behind her. I thought maybe the male had showed up. Eventually, she flew to the nest. It didn’t take her long before she turned her body around and was now looking outside the hole. She kept looking out for around 10 minutes before I heard a noise. A few minutes earlier I heard the male call so I thought the noise I heard might of been him coming closer. All of a sudden out of no where I heard a loud crashing noise at the nest hole cause by a female Wood Duck who tried to get inside the Pileated Woodpeckers nest while the female Pileated was inside. The Wood Duck bounced off the tree and went backwards. When the Wood Duck flew off the the Pileated flew out of the nest hole onto a tree near me where I got more photos. I know the photos of the Wood Duck aren’t sharp, but I included them to document what I saw today.

Barred Owl 05-23-26

Peaches and I found this Barred Owl on our morning walk today.

Pileated Woodpeckers (Photos and Video) 05-22-26

These are the photos taken today, 05-22-26, of the Pileated Woodpeckers that are also included in the YouTube video. This morning, 05-22-26, it was a cloudy morning with on and off sprinkles when I went out to the Pileated Woodpeckers nest. I got to the area and checked the nest hole, then proceeded to get my gear together while keeping an eye on the nest. I wasn’t there more than a few minutes when I saw the female fly into the nest. No more than 2 minutes later the female flew back out of the hole. Well, another half minute and I would have been ready. The next time the female showed up I was ready and got some photos of her. After I got a few photos I switched to video mode before she climbed into the nest. This time after her body was in the nest I could see her tail moving around at the entrance. My guess she was tending to some little ones. Since she left the nest after two minutes the last time I saw her I thought maybe she would do the same. That didn’t happen, but a short while later the male showed up. I only took a short video of him as the female left the nest before he went in the nest hole. I put together this short 4 minute video from these two video clips and the photos from today.