I began and ended my Petersburg birding day with the Lewis’s Woodpecker. At 7:30 it was fluffed up in the cold, and on or near the apples for about 10 minutes and then left and soon after returned. The store-bought apples are clearly its favorite, but they were frozen hard this morning and the woodpecker had to work hard to get its breakfast. After it had been gone awhile, I also left to see what other birds were around, which were mainly ducks near the shore.
It was a spectacular morning, with the sun turning much of the water golden as it lit up more and more of the surroundings.
Before I add more woodpecker pictures at the bottom of this post, I will give a sampling of duck photos, including Harlequin Duck, Red-breasted Merganser, and Surf, White-winged and Black Scoters:
After a drive up to the north end of the island, I then returned to the apple tree and watched the woodpecker some more. It does appear to be a young and/or molting bird with fluffy breast feathers and an incomplete tail. It is so amazing that it wandered so far from its home, probably in the western Lower 48 or southern Canada.
Periodically it left the apple tree, particularly when someone walked by on the nearby sidewalk, often to perch in the spruce tree very close to and above the apple tree.
The inserted video below shows the Lewis’s Woodpecker working hard to eat the frozen apple. What a wonderful bird!
I am now back in Anchorage thinking about what to do next.
304 species so far
Lynn Barber's Birding Blog 
Hi Lynn,
Yes the Lewis’s Woodpecker is far from home, but there are two records for mid-central British Columbia so not so far I guess? It looks like a “Bird-on-a-Stick” idea worked. When I was down there Brad was talking about doing this to “keep the bird around” a while Congratulations.
Check those Mallard flocks carefully…I always think American Black Duck when I see large concentrations of Mallards in Alaska.
Getting Down to the Wire with little more than one month to go!!!.
Ed Clark
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