black woodpecker sighting?

Ok it was black with a red head. Any thoughts?

It could well have been a Starling with a stained face/head from the pollen of a New Zealand Flax plant. Granted it would have been orange not red, but from a distance or a fleeting sighting, a Starling pecking at a fat ball or peanuts or similar could appear to be a larger black coloured bird with a red head and displaying a similar action to that of a woodpecker on a feeder. (Just a thought...)
Where I used to live in South East England we had lots of tropical and exotic plants planted in the development that I lived at, and these orange headed Starlings were a fairly common sight.

Great Spotted Woodpecker? It would presumably appear mainly black with red on the head, if seen from behind. (I've only ever seen them sideways on at the very top of a tree, like the Christmas tree fairy, so what do I know?)

Hi

a Black woodpecker hammering at a tree is audible over 100 yards away- sounds like someone hitting the tree with a baseball bat!

A Green or Great Spotted woodpecker in the shadow of a tree would look black if no optical aids were used


S

I know what a Great Spotted Woodpecker on a tree sounds like, but the bird in question here was on a bird feeder, and presumably eating rather than drumming.

Hi

how long is the bird feeder ? :)

S

I think we need more information regarding how long the sighting was, how far away the feeders were when it was seen, and time of day or lighting... I think though that this won't be resolved any time soon...

Agreed Paul- and there is one feature that hasn't been mentioned yet- and its very obvious in the field normally :)

S

Here's some photos of what I was talking about regarding the Starlings. Filg, was this the sort of thing you may have seen? It's exactly like the Starlings I used to see in my old place.

www.irishgardenbirds.ie/.../Starling-pollen-_9249DC.jpg

rspbailey, not all of us carry such technology around, my phone is not capable of that but I still manage to see the occasional rare bird and get the record accepted. At one time birders always had a notebook and pencil in their jacket pocket and wrote down field notes of birds seen and maybe sketched birds, even a basic sketch backed by notes can help i.d. a bird without a photo.