There are Woodpeckers and There Is THE Woodpecker!

Every morning I do my "bird chore". I fill the feeder with sunflower seeds and place quality suet in the holes of the feeder logs. The suet is made of oats, peanut butter, sugar, corn meal, flour, and lard. It is a wonderful mixture that the birds love.

As I watch, a parade of wrens, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, cardinals, morning doves, and sparrows visit the feeders. I especially enjoy the constant visits of the woodpeckers. Everyday we see Downy, Hairy, Red-bellied, and the magnificent Pileated woodpeckers.

Watching the crow-sized Pileated woodpeckers makes one appreciate the news that the rarest of the US woodpeckers were rediscovered this spring. The sketch above is of the Ivory-billed woodpecker which had not been seen since 1946. After 60 years the Ivory-billed was rediscovered living in the Big Woods of Eastern Arkansas. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is the second-largest woodpecker in the world, slightly smaller than the closely related Imperial Woodpecker of western Mexico. It measures from 48–53 cm (19 to 21 in) in length and 450–570 g weight, with short legs and feet ending in large, curved claws.

I thought you would enjoy these photos of Ivory-billed woodpeckers taken by Arthur Allen and Peter Paul Kellogg. Cornell University professors Arthur Allen and Peter Paul Kellogg led the Brand-Cornell University-American Museum of Natural History Ornithological Expedition in Northern Louisana in 1935.