Today Bruce Labar and I hiked a trail neither of us had visited before, looking for woodpeckers sighted and posted about on Tweeters and e-Bird.  After a bit of searching we found the unmarked trailhead just about 10 miles from Hwy 410 on FR 73.  The trail almost immediately enters a montane forrest that seems a woodpecker paradise, innumerable snags, trees blown down, and several small burned areas.  On the way in it was fairly quiet, with the exception of a brief tooting of a N. Pygmy owl near the start of the trail.  We walked past Eleanor Lake, about another mile and and a half to what appeared to approach the Grand Park.  We were on a time limit, and so didn’t get to see the park. Fog and clouds would have surely obscured the view anyway.

Not a woodpecker on the way in!  On the way out I played for Black-backed periodically, and just after the steep decline from near the park, in an area of an old burn, where the prior BBWP was sighted this week a woodpecker started drumming right after I played the recording. It was identical to the recording, a fairly long, accelerating drumming, obviously on a hollow tree as it was unusually loud.  It repeated about 5 times.  Bruce and I spent over half an  hour looking for the bird, but were mobbed by gray jays, and all we got more was one short pip-like note again identical to the recorded call note  We were both pretty confident of the ID based on the drumming, so listed this nird on e-Bird today.

On the way out much more bird activity was noted, with several Pacific wrens calling, one seen, AMRO, HETH, VATH, CORA and RBNU with MOCH the primary species.   A great place discovered and I can’t wait to return in early summer to hear what I expect to be many breeders singing.