On the 29th, I did a lot of visiting with relatives and family friends, and the only time I got outside was when I was visiting with my Mom over at my parent's place.

We were out in the backyard when I heard a woodpecker thumping on a tree. I found him fairly easily; he was a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. (The red on his throat identifies him as a male.) I'd seen my first Yellow-belly a few days before in Dorey Park.

I don't really know what he was doing with his head in that photo, though. Maybe he was trying to work out a crick in his neck that he got from all that tree-pecking.

It was getting late in the day, and therefore a little chilly, so my Mom and I went inside for a moment so that she could get a sweater. When we came back out, we went looking for one of the specialties in her neighborhood: Helmeted Guineafowl, or, as many say, Guineas. Guineas are an imported farm bird, but there are some places where they have established feral populations, i.e. in places they have escaped the farms and started breeding populations in the wild. My parents' neighborhood and the surrounding area is such a place. The Guineas have established regular habits, and lately they've been coming through the neighborhood from north to south a bit before dusk.

We hadn't heard them calling, so we went out to near where they normally start their trip through the neighborhood to try to find them. We could've waited for them at my parents', but with the light fading fast I felt I would have a better chance of getting decent photos if we found them quickly.

So off we went to search for the Guineas. Along the way, I saw and then heard another woodpecker. At first I thought it might be the same one, but when I got a good look at him I knew he wasn't. This guy was a Downy Woodpecker, a smaller bird, and one quite familiar to me. Here, it's the red on the back of the top of his head (just barely visible in the photo) that indicates he's a male.

After striking out on Guineas one street over, we headed back to my parent's home, but on the way my Mom spotted a pair of them over towards where we had been. It was fairly dark, and I had to turn the ISO setting on my camera way up, so I got noisy pictures that were hard to prepare for viewing. I did my best, though, and so here are a few photos of these striking birds.

I've seen the Guineas before (actually, a previous generation of them) and always enjoyed it, even though I wasn't into birding at the time. They've got both personality and style.

Anyhow, the sun set, and that was it for my photos that day. In the year, and in this trip to Viriginia, this was my last day of photography that was worth a separate entry. Next time, I'll bring you all the miscellaneous photos from the fall, and that will close out my 2006 entries.

Gaga for Guineafowl,
Tom