Last updated on November 22, 2022
This picture, taken in my backyard, features a female—evidenced by the lack of a red patch on the top of its head—ladder-backed woodpecker (Dryobates scalaris). It might look familiar too, but I actually took the separate pictures months apart. The ladder-backed woodpecker stays in the same place year round, meaning that you can often see the same bird multiple times over the year. While the ladder-backed woodpecker might look extremely similar to the Nuttall’s woodpecker, the latter species is almost exclusive to California; the ladder-backed can be found in both North and Central America. A common sight in the American Southwest, the ladder-backed woodpecker mainly eats insects by using its beak to bore holes into tree trunks, but examples living in the desert also eat cactus fruits.
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