Gray-headed Woodpecker

Description:

Picus canus - Gray-headed Woodpecker - I've been spending way too much time with the microscope so karma (or whatever force it was) found a way to remind me that I should go for a walk because there are a lot of things to see outside :) I was gazing through my window absent-mindedly when I saw that one of the tomtits playing outside was too dark and clumsy and large... or so I thought at first before my brain actually started processing information instead of using its default pattern recognition lazily.# I already wrote that the reason why I bought my tele-lens was seeing a Gray-headed woodpecker on a brick wall just several meters away from me and being unable to photograph it - and the helpless feeling about it. That day I went home and saw an ad - someone was selling a canon 300/f4 L lens. I would never have got the courage to spend so much money on a toy at once but I was mad at the woodpecker %DI've been trying to hunt down the damn bird for the whole time, and my whole Birds collection here on flickr is a by-product of that hunt - in a way.#Well now guess who that clumsy "tomtit" was. It was The woodpecker! I pulled a coat and snowpants over my pajamas and went outside just in time to make my way through deep snow and take a couple of shots - they lighting was bad but they were okay "for the record". However, as if it wasn't enough, the next day I hear a persistent knock-knock on the window sill in my kitchen - and there's the "tomtit" again, trying to steal a piece of lard I'd left for the real tomtits. I grabbed the camera and took these shots (wish the window was cleaner)This completes my mission of photographing all seven of the woodpecker species that live here:Dendrocopos majorDendrocopos leucotosPicoides minorPicoides tridactylusPicus canusJynx torquilla.Time to work on the quality of pictures now :)