The Wood Pecker

[Prajwal J Ullal]

Recently had been to Mangalore and had an amazing time roaming the remote places and happy encounters with the angels of the woods. One such encounter was with this Red-headed Spiky guy...
It was interesting to observe the behavior, calls and noise made by this beauty.
Had taken this in the morning and had to spend some time getting it position under proper lighting
EXIF:
Canon EOS 550D
Canon 55-250 IS
F-8
Shutterspeed 1/400
ISO 400
Place: Tachchaani, Talapady

[Prajwal J Ullal]

Its a, close to, 50% crop

[Sabyasachi Patra]

You did your best with the small focal length. Despite cropping there are some details. When I first saw this species, I thought it looked like some cowboy spikes. :) One can see that these wood peckers are pretty fast, moving from one tree to other in search of food. no laziness, unlike us. :)

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice catch light on the eye. I have still not been able to take a decent image of this bird as it keeps moving so fast, and the gypsy drivers are not much interested to follow a bird :(. The vertical composition looks nice. Wish it was closer. Thanks for sharing.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

the spikes look nice.

Lesser flameback-female. In the male the red spikes will extend to the forehead, right upto the base of the upper bill.

TFS
Roopak

[Prajwal J Ullal]

Ok, thanks for the details of the Bird Roopak Sir :)
This image was taken quite early in the morning, and I guess the bird wasnt that charged up. I did, however, had to follow it for quite a long distance, but this bird was well settled on this spot for almost 8-10mins, so I could get this frame. It was quite high on the tree and i had to struggle thru to get a clear shot, hence couldnot manage a closer shot