Red-naped Sapsucker is still in Canon City

Well, as I have said, just because you don't find a sapsucker doesn't mean it's not around. Because of that, and the fact that I had found another location nearby that showed fresh sapwells, I went back to the Abbey this morning to see look again for the female Red-naped sapsucker. And when I was about 150 feet from the trees where it had been seen I spotted it in the lower section of one of the pine trees there.

This top photo I took this morning shows well the throat pattern of female Red-naped Sapsuckers--whitish chin (lower part of throat) with some red on throat and in this case a full red throat. By double-clicking on the pic to enlarge it, it is easy to see that that the red feathers on its crown are raised. I think it raised these feathers because it heard the click of my digital camera (darn, I wish it was possible to turn off the clicking sound like the bell-like sound can be turned-off). The sapsucker appeared to react to the sound of the clicking, first by stopping feeding then moving around towards the far side of the tree and then emitting some calls. Though I had to stop taking photos, I got some good ones as the sun came out a little.

The bottom photo, though very similar to the first, clearly shows a tuft of black feathers at the base of the bill (just under the bill). And it shows some yellowish feathers on its upper breast area.

I will put up some additional photos I took either later tonight or tomorrow (I need to get ready to go to a public meeting on the Pike-San Isabel National Forest plan revision-birds can't speak for themselves so we conservationists need to go speak for them to protect their habitat, especially for Red-naped Sapsuckers as they breed in old growth aspen forests on Forest Service land) that show more interesting features.