A gleaming red crest turned up by the Trail Sk8Park earlier this week, and shutterbug Ron Wilson was lucky enough to be nearby to capture another spectacular photo of a pileated woodpecker.
Incidentally, “pileated” refers to the bird’s prominent red crest from the Latin pileatus, meaning “capped.”
The close up is a cropped version of the same bird, which Ron laughs, “She was giving me the eye (haha) or in the middle of blinking.”
Think about it, chips fly as a woodpecker chisels a cavity.
That’s why the woodpecker has evolved a structure called a “nictitating membrane,” over their eyes. Beneath the outer eyelids lies this membrane, or extra eyelid, which protects the eye by keeping it moist and clean while guarding it from wind, dust, and hazards.
