Well the weather outside is frightful
And the lighting’s undelightful!
It’s dreary and the skies are gray
But I think I’ll go out anyway!

Well, when you have one rainy day after another…after another…sometimes you just need to pick up the camera and sneak outside between showers for sanity’s sake!

And I’m glad I did, because otherwise I would have missed this Hairy Woodpecker that showed up.

They are typically oh-so-skittish, but this lovely lady landed on a perch we had set up earlier in the day, then scanned her surroundings and flew off.

She headed straight to a nearby Bark Butter branch, where she helped herself to a hearty snack. You can tell this one is a female because she doesn’t have any red on the head.

From a distance, this bird looks a lot like it’s lesser sized relative, the Downy Woodpecker, but Hairy’s have bigger bodies and longer beaks. Below is a picture of a male Downy that dropped in a few moments later so you can see how similar they look.

I’m hoping that this lovely Hairy Woodpecker takes a liking to Bark Butter and that she brings along a handsome counterpart so I can get a picture of him too. I’ll keep ya posted!