Downy Woodpecker

jeffashman · Feb 5, 2022

Today was a day of firsts for me. This is my first Downy Woodpecker. I heard it hammering, but it took me about five minutes to finally spot it, and it was in deep shade. EV was +8/3, whatever that means, but it was what I needed to get the detail of the bird in the shade. Needless to say, the background was washed out, but hey.

feb05202202 by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

MitchP · Feb 5, 2022

Nice capture! The upper right corner is definitely bright, you could probably crop smaller and eliminate it completely.

Jeff15 · Feb 6, 2022

Very nice shot.....

K9Kirk · Feb 6, 2022

Cool looking birds, too bad about the light. I've tried to catch red-bellied woodpeckers on the sides of trees like that and they can be very annoying. it seems like whenever they see me they keep moving to the opposite side of where ever I am. It's like they make a game out of it and tease the living hell out of you.

jeffashman · Feb 6, 2022

MitchP said:
Nice capture! The upper right corner is definitely bright, you could probably crop smaller and eliminate it completely.

Thanks! I thought about it, but I didn't want to clip the nice triangle that the branches make. I may try my hand at layering and darkening the background, if I can find time to fiddle around with it.

Jeff15 said:
Very nice shot.....

Thanks!

K9Kirk said:
Cool looking birds, too bad about the light. I've tried to catch red-bellied woodpeckers on the sides of trees like that and they can be very annoying. it seems like whenever they see me they keep moving to the opposite side of where ever I am. It's like they make a game out of it and tease the living hell out of you.

Yep. This one was in a place where I couldn't maneuver much due to the undergrowth, and it did scoot around to the other side once it noticed me.