Gila Woodpecker
Green Valley, Arizona
Three Gila woodpeckers (two females and a male) were regular visitors to a friend's property south of Tucson, Arizona, where I spent several days shooting their comings and goings from a variety of perches, including this weathered old cactus trunk that ranked as their clear favorite. The females in particular saw it as "theirs", and vigorously defended the wooden trunk from anyone else who tried to get close to it, including an unlucky male house finch who wound up in the woodpecker's claws and bodily thrown off, pro-wrestling style. Those same strong feet, combined with a "kickstand" tail, allow the woodpecker to hang upside down from a variety of surfaces, with the kind of ease than a professional climber could only dream of!
A Melanerpes or "zebra-back" woodpecker, the Gila has the same black-and-white bar pattern as the familiar red-bellied woodpecker out east, swapping the light red underside for yellow.