[rba] Black-backed Woodpecker - Dakota County

[David A. Cahlander]

From: drewbec AT aol.com
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:54:43 -0400

I was in St. Paul this morning and decided to stop at Acacia Park Cemetary 
in
Mendota Heights on my way back home. I was on the road along the southern 
edge
of the cemetary, and stopped by the old metal electrical tower, and started
pishing loudly to see if any sparrows would come out of the weeds there. I
turned to look west along the road at a couple chickadees, and noticed a 
fairly
good sized woodpecker flying towards me, approximately Hairy Woodpecker 
size.
It was silent as it went by and flew up into a walnut tree that had lost 
nearly
all of its leaves, about 100 feet away. Deciding to have a look at it, I got 
it
in my binoculars and was looking at a back view of the bird. I was surprised 
to
see there was no white on the back anywhere! It appeared solid black. Holy
s--t!!! (The reality sunk in very quickly!) The bird turned to the left and
gave me a profile view of its right side, and I saw its barred flanks, all
black head, white moustache stripe, black malar stripe and white throat. It
continued to work its way up the limb, and then flew off to the east 
southeast
towards Pilot Knob Road and the couple houses there. I got in my car and 
drove
back in that direction, and searched that corner of the cemetary for another
5-10 minutes without locating it again. I decided I needed to get home and 
get
the word out on the net.

As I didn't see any indication of color on the forehead, I"m going to say I
believe the bird is a female. As my observation was very short, I might be
wrong.

There is only one previous record of this species for Dakota County, from
January 1930.

Drew Smith
Eagan, Dakota County
---
David Cahlander david at cahlander.com Burnsville, MN 952-894-5910