The Pileated has always been my nemesis bird. You know the one bird that although they do live in your area, you can never seem to get a nice clean shot of one. For those of you who may not be familiar, the Pileated is a very large Woodpecker. This one was about 18" tall. This was in my own yard yesterday. I was raking leaves and I saw him fly high up into a maple tree and then he hopped over to an adjacent dead tree and started pecking away. The angle was steep and there were lots of branches and leaves obscuring a clean shot but I managed to get two decent ones. The Pileated is a very skittish bird and I was lucky to even get as close as I did. Anyways, below are two of the shots I managed.
