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Hungry Woodpecker - Gellatly Regional Park, Westbank BC

One of two woodpeckers methodically hammering away at pine trees in the Gellatly Regional Park on Gellatly Road, West Kelowna (Westbank, BC).

This is a medium sized woodpecker equipped with a large bill for pounding through the surface bark of live or decaying trees to look for wood bugs and ants below the surface. This is a female Hairy woodpecker and doesn't have the red color patch on the crest of its hood as the male of the species does. Both male and females have a smoky white back ( the belly is also smoky white) and a strip of white down the spine between its shoulders, ending in a thin point at the root of the tail feathers. It has black wings with small white spots - the amount of white spots on the wings vary regionally (in the humid, warmer Pacific Northwest, the white patch and belly is more drab or looks like a soiled tinge. The range of the Hairy woodpecker starts in Alaska, through Canada and down to Panama from the coast to the eastern side of the coastal mountains and to the east to the great plains. They like forests, woodlands, river groves and shade trees.