Woody Woodpecker Sighting

On Saturday morning I went on Bob's bird walk. It was so quiet that most of the people on the walk were newbies and few people other than me were regulars. We went into The Ramble. For a long time we saw almost nothing except for some Northern Flickers and a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. As we were walking to Warbler Rock, one of the birders yelled, "It's a red-belli- no wait it's a red-headed!" Wait, wait, what? I was so shocked that it took a while for me to get my binoculars straight. This is among the time you would LEAST EXPECT this species. Red-Headed Woodpecker is an occasional fall migrant and winter resident in Central Park with a few records a year. This year was a very good year for them with some being sighted into late-May in The Bronx and Brooklyn. When I put my binoculars on the bird (somehow the last one to do it) I was as shocked as everyone else. It was an adult RED-HEADED WOODPECKER! Unfortunately, we weren't prepared for this and therefore bought no good cameras! We had a scope, but it would take a while to set up. A while wasn't enough for this bird, and it left a few minutes after we first spotted it, showing its distinctive wing patches. Our guide tried to call it in twice, but it didn't work. We then checked a few other empty sites and then went to see the Peregrine Falcon nest near the south end of the park. One of the two eyasses fledged Wednesday and left, but the other was still there. We watched it hop and flap but it didn't fly. This walk was not very good besides the Red-Headed Woodpecker, but that bird shows that you should always expect the unexpected in Central Park. 

By the way, I don't think the bird is twitchable, but if you want to find it, go to open woodlands in and around The Ramble, like Warbler Rock or the Swampy Pin Oak and look on the trees. Please note that the bird was only seen by our group and no one else and is an extremely late record. I'm not going to post a bird list due to all of our species being either common (Warbling Vireo, Red-Bellied Woodpecker) or in the post.