Male Black-backed Woodpecker.
A local rarity! I photographed a female in early winter in the west end of the city where it had been reported (and posted a couple of images), and thought to myself that a male would be nice as they are cool with their yellow forehead. Well, one has been reported and photographed by others (as well as another female), but in the west end again. I decided to stick closer to home due to lack of time in hopes of relocating the screech owl and low and behold I stumbled upon an unexpected and cooperative male Black-backed Woodpecker! That now makes for at least four individuals locally and outside their normal range. It was high up in the trees but I managed to lure it down to eye level by imitating its' tapping by using a branch on a tree trunk...at first it came to within two feet of me, basically to the exact spot I was tapping the tree!
Canon 7D + 100-400L @275mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/1000s., f/6.3, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, darkend pupil, added a wee bit of canvas below to give room for the tail tip which I framed too close (tsk, tsk), a distracting bright patch in the BG filled in via clone tool, toned down the perch via burn tool.
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