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.