Limpkin ( Aramus guarauna ) Spotted at Orlando Wetlands

Limpkin ( Aramus guarauna ) Spotted at Orlando Wetlands, a photo by Sheri Fresonke Harper on Flickr.

This Limpkin ( Aramus guarauna ) posed for us at Orlando Wetlands, Christmas, Florida. He might be a bit hard to identify since he's found with the rails and storks rather than the herons in your guidebook. His beak is what makes him standout differently from juvenile herons, as does the coloring/patterning of his back.

Pileated Woodpeckers (dryocopus pileatus) are often seen on rotting wood, either on the ground or on old stumps. The first pileated woodpecker bird sighting was at my property in Renton, WA in February on a electric pole. Pileated woodpeckers often only stayed during migration then moved on to richer territory. They like evergreens. As a birdwatcher, I've found they will come to a suet feeder and to fruit.

This pileated woodpecker was spotted while birdwatching in Congaree National Park near Columbia, South Carolina, where local conservationists saved 26,000 acres of old growth forest in a key wetland -- swamps and bottomland. Their range covers the East to the Mississippi River including all the way south to Florida, across the upper regions of Canada and down into the Pacific Northwest. Pileated woodpeckers are often heard by their extremely loud drumming and cries of kuk kuk, keekeekee keekeekee kuk before they are spotted by birdwatchers, often spiraling up a tree from low to high and along tree branches.