pcoin
Well-known member
Fishcrow video
I, personally, do not see anything in the video clip that screams "woodpecker", but that is just me. I have pretty good experience with almost all the North American Woodpeckers, and a little bit of woodpecker-watching in the Neotropics. I have been birding since 1966, but I am the first to admit that I can make ID mistakes, and have, on numerous occasions. I do not know a birder who does not.
Of course, the video is so brief, and the bird so distant, it is hard say anything conclusive. The Song Remains the Same.
I looked at it several times, both the original AVI and the animated GIF. I see a hint of a very long neck stretching out in front in one or two frames--of course, one cannot be sure of that, or anything. The overall flight pattern and wing shape remind me of a Great Blue Heron. The hint of lighter tone on the trailing edge, to me, looks like a bit of glare, often present on primaries and secondaries because they have broad flat surfaces that reflect sunlight at certain angles. (I've been fooled many times by the glint off of a Brown Pelican's wings into thinking there was some white on them, for instance.) The fact that the lighter tone seems to come and go with the flapping is, I feel, more consistent with glare than with plumage coloration. To me, too, the bird looks grey, not black-and-white, but of course that will depend on the exposure. For tonal reference, I note that the vegetation looks to be exposed fairly well--in the middle range of the sensor, neither over- nor under-exposed.Note: this is degraded because of the conversion to animated gif. It's just to display a quick slow motion view here...
View attachment 141361
Better than Luneau's anyway, IMO.
I, personally, do not see anything in the video clip that screams "woodpecker", but that is just me. I have pretty good experience with almost all the North American Woodpeckers, and a little bit of woodpecker-watching in the Neotropics. I have been birding since 1966, but I am the first to admit that I can make ID mistakes, and have, on numerous occasions. I do not know a birder who does not.
Of course, the video is so brief, and the bird so distant, it is hard say anything conclusive. The Song Remains the Same.