For months, I’ve had a female albino woodpecker hanging out in my yard, draining the hummingbird feeder, drilling holes in a tall stump. She successfully drilled a nest hole, but a starling moved in.
I’ve taken photos of her, but without a close-up lens, you couldn’t distinguish the bird from the tree trunk. The bird is not white, as most albino mammals are, but it is very pale, with very pale markings. Here is Tom Pawlesh’s image of a regular female.
Bo Mackison, the nature photographer, was passing through Phoenix, and caught the female on the palm trunk. At last, a really good photograph by a professional.
Gila Woodpecker, (c) Bo Mackison
—Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach. She also teaches people who can’t draw hot to keep an art journal.
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