While I'm thinking about woodpeckers, here's the Pileated. Very common, but their range skirts right around Eastern Washington, so they're not so common around here.
An interesting thing (in addition to the structure of their skulls, their specialized tail feathers and the funky crest) about these woodpeckers is their feet. Lots of birds have four toes (like Bernini, for example), and their feet are classified by the position of the toes. Parrots have zygodactyl feet, meaning toes 1 (the hallux) and 4 point to the back, and toes 2 and 3 point forward.
It was thought for many years that woodpeckers have the same kind of feet (and Flickers, apparently, do), but not quite. When foraging on the ground, all woodpeckers use a zygodactyl arrangement of their toes. But when climbing, the fourth toes of some woodpeckers can pivot from back to side (or front) to allow the bird to keep a tighter grasp on the bark of trees. Those feet are classified as ectropodactyl. Pileated woodpeckers have ectropodactyl feet.
Very cool.
Doodled from a photo by jelleyman.
