Pileated Woodpecker

A very pleasant surprise this afternoon! I was standing on the front porch listening to a bird sound that I didn't recognize, looking up into the maple tree where the noise seemed to be coming from. I was thinking about going back inside to get my phone so I could use the app from the nice people at Cornell called "Merlin" which now has an absolutely amazing Sound ID feature. And then my eyes dropped from the tree and BOING!!! A pileated woodpecker just standing there on the big slice of an oak tree that The Husband has erected as yet another piece of yard art (standing on one of his many rock walls - this one a retaining wall along the top of the driveway). Whoa! So - holding my breath - I stepped back and opened the door to the house, reached in for my camera (which sits next to the door) - turned it on, focused, and managed to get ONE shot off before the bird turned and launched itself off, back down our driveway. 

There is no shortage of pileated woodpeckers in the woods around here and we hear them regularly. Also see them fly past on occasion. But I seem to get precious few chances to actually get a decent photograph. So... SCORE!!

This one appears at first glance to be a female. But when I squint closely at its moustache, I wonder if it doesn't look a bit reddish? Could be a male and the light on the moustache is just bad. Hard to know for sure. Oh and also? I don't think the sound I was curious about was coming from this bird, but I suppose it's not impossible.