Pileated Woodpecker

What a lucky capture this was. I had left the sunroom Sunday afternoon to go to the kitchen to make some coffee. A  few minutes later I barely heard my husband whisper, 'Carletta, woodpecker.' I walked into the sunroom and looked at the bird feeder and saw nothing. I looked at him and he just lowered his head nodding toward the ground. I literally gasped as I grabbed the camera. I quickly clicked off about 15 shots in the less than one minute she hung around. You can tell by the absense of a red stripe on the cheek that this is a female. I have heard and seen a couple at a distance. This was the first time this season I've seen one this close to the house and close enough even to attempt a photo.

About six hours later as I was sitting at my computer I saw something fly by the sunroom window.   My mind barely registered the flash of black and red before I grabbed my camera and went to my living room window. Sure enough I spotted him. He was too far away for a decent shot so this one through a very dirty window was the best I could do. If you enlarge the image you'll notice the red stripe on the cheek signifying the male pileated.  

Another far out of reach shot was the wild turkey we spotted one day on our way to do errands. This photo has been cropped considerably but you can see he was in the field strutting his business. There were four hens to the right just out of the camera's lens that he was trying to impress.

Let me apologize for the barely there shots this week; but I want to share one more. Don't look too quickly at the blurred geese and miss those tiny little furry goslings in the foreground. We had gone for a country drive and when I saw the geese in a field I asked my hubby to stop knowing they were too far away but I had a fence photo in mind.  That's when I saw the little balls of fur and zoomed in as far as I could.  Look closely and you'll see six of them. Mom and Dad sure have their work cut out for them.
Linking to Wild Bird Wednesday.