We were in the forest when we heard "tap-tap-tap". This is the distinctive sound of a woodpecker. Quietly, we tried to locate the woodpecker. We expected it be on the trunk of a tree up higher than us. It didn’t take us long to find him perched on a fallen tree pecking at the bark. He was not aware of us. We took pictures from as many angles as possible. Zoo tried to crawl in off the path in the deep snow to get a closer shot, but the bird noticed and flew up to a nearby tree. When we came home, we uploaded our images to take a look. We took a bird book and we went to the woodpecker section. We decided that it was the Downy Woodpecker (Pic Mineur), but then we realized that it was the Hairy Woodpecker (Pic Chevelu) because it is a bigger bird with a longer beak, but otherwise is identical. The Hairy Woodpecker is bigger than a robin and smaller than a pigeon. The tummy and the middle of the back are white. The wings are black with a white stripe. The head has black and white bands and the male has a spot of red right on top of the head. With Photoshop, we were able to zoom into the image to examine the beak.
Resources: Eastern Birds, Peterson Field Guides. This is the "Birder’s Bible" using the"Peterson System". It has been replaced by a newer volume which includes central North America.
Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds. This guide has photographs rather than sketches and comes with a formidable DVD featuring 5.5 hours of vocalizations in 587 MP3 files, each embedded with an image.
Guide des Oiseaux de l’Amerique du Nord. Guide d’identification sur le terrain (Marcel Broquet, Quebec, 1983) [out of print]
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
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