Exploring the rare flight of the Lewis’s woodpecker

I’ve spent a lifetime and a full career of over 40 years writing about and taking photos of all sorts of wildlife, and birds in particular. So, it would be natural to think that I’ve seen all the birds or all the wildlife. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

You might also be surprised that I don’t keep a life list. So, what the heck is a life list? A life list is a simple checklist of all the birds you have seen over your lifetime. When you see a bird for the first time, you add it to your life list, indicating you have seen this bird. Let me remind you that there are over 11,000 species of birds, so the average bird watcher never gets to see them all.

A small handful of birders have over 9,000 birds on their personal life lists, but this is very rare. I will never fall into that category. I don’t keep a life list of anything. The closest I come is the catalog of all my wildlife images in my photo management software. I have over half a million images, representing thousands of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects.

All of this came to mind the other day while I was editing some images from a trip I took this past summer to Arizona. I had the chance to photograph a number of bird species, such as the California condor and the elegant trogon, but what really stood out were a few captures of a Lewis’s woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis). I have always wanted to photograph this woodpecker.

Advertisement

The Lewis’s woodpecker is one of the largest woodpeckers in America, standing 11 inches tall. It was named after the famous explorer Meriwether Lewis, who first surveyed the area known as the Louisiana Purchase and was the first to describe this woodpecker

Over the years, I’ve taken several trips specifically to capture images of this unusual woodpecker. In fact, I was supposed to go to Montana this spring to look for a Lewis’s woodpecker, but it didn’t work out. You can imagine how happy I was to find several of these woodpeckers in northern Arizona.

The Lewis’s woodpecker is definitely a type of woodpecker, but it doesn’t seem to follow the usual woodpecker rules. Unlike other woodpeckers, it catches insects the same way flycatchers do. The Lewis’s woodpecker perches on a branch and waits for a large insect to fly by, then dashes out to grab the bug in midair before returning to the branch to eat and wait for another. This type of hunting is called “hawking.”

In addition, if you see one of these woodpeckers flying, you might mistake it for an American crow. Woodpeckers typically have a characteristic flight pattern, with several strong flaps that cause them to rise, followed by tucking their wings and gliding, which causes them to lose altitude. This alternating flapping and gliding makes them look like they’re on a roller coaster ride in flight. The Lewis’s woodpecker, however, flaps constantly, producing a straight flight pattern.

Advertisement

Unlike other woodpeckers, the Lewis’s woodpecker usually doesn’t excavate its own nesting cavity. If it does, the male typically does all the work. Otherwise, they take over the cavities of other woodpeckers or use a natural cavity for nesting, often reusing the same nest cavity for several years in a row. This behavior is quite different from other woodpecker species.

Lastly, most woodpeckers are typically black and white, but not the Lewis’s woodpecker. It has a unique combination of a greenish-black back and a pinkish-red belly. They don’t really look like any other woodpecker.

So, you can imagine how thrilled I was when, during my trip to Arizona this summer, I wasn’t even thinking about photographing a Lewis’s woodpecker, and an opportunity arose. I couldn’t capture any high-quality images, but I did manage to get a few so-so shots. This has sparked my interest in planning a couple of trips specifically to study and capture high-quality images of this amazing woodpecker. Until next time …

Editor’s note: Stan Tekiela’s NatureSmart column appears twice a month in the Eden Prairie Local News. Tekiela is an author, naturalist, and wildlife photographer who travels extensively across the United States to study and capture wildlife images.

You can follow his work on Instagram and Facebook. He can be contacted via his website at www.naturesmart.com.