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Project Noah Nature School
Colaptes auratus cafer
Gorgeous bird with gray face, brown body and red head. It has black spots on its chest after a crescent black marking under the throat. The wings have black stripes and the tail has white edges and is red underneath. The bill is long, slender and curves downward with the lower being much shorter that the upper.
Was in prairie near a frozen creek but was spooked when I walked towards it and landed in an unknown tree.
What a different perspective for me,of the same bird!! i had two sightings !! They were perched in different positions. Once like a wood pecker and once upright like an owl. They looked different both the times. Now this style. Very pretty bird.
A wildlife rehabilitator said they mostly eat ants and beetles they scare up from the ground without pecking, the males excavate the nesting holes (for the most part). She isn't wearing it down as she normally would.
Wow! I can't believe how deformed the bill is. Why would it get like that? I thought it was finding bugs in the dirt near the frozen creek with that bill. I wonder how it's managed to survive as a woodpecker with that bill. Thanks for the ID Liam!
OK, I've been sitting here looking through Sibly saying "What!?" So it is a deformity! Thanks Cindy for the cool picture, and Liam for your insight.
Spotted on Jan 9, 2012
Submitted on Jan 12, 2012
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