Regarding the picture.
I took that picture around midday on thursday, january 26, 06. It was taken through the passenger side window of my car. I was in the area on my website referred to as the 1st search area.
The bird is real. It is not a decoy. It is not in an orange tree. It is alive and breathing.
I was in my car in these woods with the camera on the front seat, I was out on this day photographing woodpecker holes and was in the process of cataloging them. I was driving on a car's width trail and this bird flew in from the left, towards the right, in front of the car. I stopped. The bird landed in some scrub variety of Quercus(oak) that borders the pines in this forest. No orange trees. No buildings.
The bird landed in the trees, it was very animated, twitchy, it pulled it's neck back and forward as it made it's way along the branches. It kept rubbing it's bill across the branches like most birds do. I lifted the camera up and was nearly hyperventilating. I put the zoom on all of the way and took a picture. All the while the bird was moving through the trees in the direction of the rear of my car while parallel to the car. When I take a picture with this camera it takes a second or two for it to click, it is not like a 35 mm camera that can wizz off a bunch of pics in 2 seconds. I did not set it to a certain pixel range, this camera has no such ability and it has only a high resolution and low resolution setting, the high setting lets you store less pictures than the low. I keep it on high.
When the picture snapped the bird had already made it parallel to the rear of the car, I watched through the windows as it flew off.
I could not see how well the picture came out on the camera, when I got home and downloaded it off the camera I totally freaked out and contacted everyone I knew. The bird is not in the classic woodpecker pose and I cannot help that. It was moving it's head this way and that and I cannot help the way the bird looks. Tell it to the bird. I took the picture and I was delighted with it. I was told to post it with no explanation to see how it would be recieved. 50/50 us how and that's ok.
I have taken a whole stack of pictures since but none as close as this.
I am trying to decide what to do with my pics, I have shared a few with some people and a few people have shared pics with me of birds they have found.
I have gathered alot of information on the natural history of these birds and I have found a nesting population where a juvenile male has been seen and photographed. As I have stated there are people in government who know of these birds, I have told a few people that I have been all but asked not to reveal this location. I have explained why to people who are civil and can carry on a normal conversation without blasting me on their blog after faking sincerity. I have given my phone number out to one person who I believed was sincere and in the last 48 hours I have recieved 12 rude phone calls. How strange is that. Ironic that I recieved no calls until I trusted this one person.
I have tried to help by giving away some locations where I have both seen birds and they have been reported. I have listened to local people, I have used satellite imagary to examine areas and more importantly I have gotten of my ass and rowed these areas. I am not special, I am not a scientist. I am a schmuck that found the birds as any schmuck can.
Oddly at this time and for the last 2 months the area where the breeding population is at has been gated off to the public. One must wonder.
Bill
