Wood Turtles

I was going to write up a detailed post about wood turtles a little bit ago from one of my little side adventures, but figured this even shorter post would be a lot better.

I'll post this link to Ed Felker's website called Dispatches from the Potomac.  It's a great blog, has phenomenal photos, and even better writing.  I could be biased though, as it's operated by my buddy and fellow conservationist, Ed Felker.  Either way,  I think his works and writings always are top of the line for what him and I do.   It really is great stuff!

Ed and I did some wood turtle finding this summer, read all about it and about wood turtles here: Virginia's Threatened Wood Turtle .

Woodpecker Identification

Here's a post that comes from the Chantilly/Centreville area of Fairfax County, Virginia.  There's a lot of land in these places, both public and private, where I am camera-trapping.

The camera was originally placed to see the medium-sized to large mammals roaming around, but another species flew by and landed right in the camera's view.

It's a new species for me (at least for my camera trapping), but the problem is, I don't know what species this is.

It's either a downy woodpecker or a hairy woodpecker, but which?

Whenever I have questions about species I first try to identify it myself.  This is tough on this one, so I emailed and texted the pictures to my colleagues that have jobs and experiences such as birders, wildlife biologists, natural resource managers, and naturalists.

Some of them say hairy woodpecker, others say downy woodpecker.  So far, all of us think it is one of the two, but conversations of sapsuckers have also arisen.

I'd really like to solve this mystery.

Other important information that may be necessary to note is that the camera's date stamp is incorrect, and that this was in Fairfax, Virginia.  The correct date stamp should read, "11-19-2013".  The pictures in this post are the only pictures I captured of it.

What bird is this?

Comments below are greatly appreciated.