Last week a renown, 83-year-old, birder from the Minneapolis area emailed me saying he'd like to come up to see if he could relocate the black-backed woodpeckers my birding buddy and I found the week before. He was also interested to know if the red-bellied woodpecker which has been in our neighborhood since last October was still around. Despite many efforts in the past, these were two species he had never seen in our county. So, we met him on a windy, cold, and snowy morning and went in search of black-backs; we had found two pair the week before. Despite visiting the same area and using playback, not a single woodpecker was found. In the afternoon, we returned to town and our friend said he'd like to come out to our house and try for the red-belly. I didn't think the odds were good, as the bird's visits have become less frequent and we hadn't seen it in five days. But when we got home, he played the woodpecker's call through a small speaker for no more than four seconds and the bird flew out of the woods and landed in a tree right next to us! While red-bellies are uncommon in our county in winter, there are almost no records of one during the spring. Anyway, the next morning he and I drove back to the black-backed area one more time before he headed home. Slowly, we drove the logging road one way, then turned around and headed back. The stretch of suitable habitat is less than a mile long, so it didn't take us long. We were just about out of it, cursing our bad luck, when a female black-back, responding to our playback, flew out of the woods and perched near us. Black-backs are everywhere uncommon, so we were overjoyed to see one. And the best thing is, we found a couple of freshly excavated holes which might indicate the start of a nest cavity. I couldn't have been more pleased that our friend had not driven all the way north in vain.
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