Mike Powell

When I am out in the wild with my camera, most of my senses are fully engaged. I am listening intently and scanning constantly, seeking audio or visual clues of the presence of potential subjects. During much of the year, sounds don’t help much, because the leaves on the trees hide the sources of the sounds. I marvel at the ability of some folks to identify birds by their calls, but I can do that with only a handful of species. So most of the time I rely on movement and to a lesser extent on color for me to acquire a target—if a bird (or insect) remains still, it often will remain invisible to me.

Last week when I was walking about at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, I heard the gentle tapping sounds of a woodpecker. I looked in the general direction of the sounds and saw a distant snag, but did not see the woodpecker. Did I have the right tree identified? As I was focusing on the tree, a Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) poked its head out from behind the tree and I quickly snapped off a couple of photos before the bird disappeared again from view.

The woodpecker was pretty far away, even for my telephoto zoom lens, so I knew that I did not get the kind of close-up detailed image that I usually like to capture. However, when I was reviewing the photos on my computer, I found myself drawn to this profile shot of the woodpecker, surrounded by the wonderful texture of the lichen-covered bark of the tree. The image has a bit of an artsy, minimalist feel that I really like.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.