I never thought I’d say this, but woodpeckers in Maine are acting weird.
Last week, a neighbor asked if it was possible an immature red-headed woodpecker was outside their cabin in Carrabassett Valley. It was possible, I opined, but highly unlikely. Birds that migrate are more likely to get caught up in storms or wander off course.
Most woodpeckers don’t migrate, so they’re less likely to show up out of range the way long-distance migrants sometimes do.
The nesting range of red-headed woodpeckers extends northward into Connecticut. IIf one chose to wander, it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to reach Maine. However, this species tends to wander south, not north, when winter food is scarce.
It would relish Maine’s acorns and beechnuts but miss the hickory nuts common farther south. As the most adept flycatcher among woodpeckers, a vagrant red-headed woodpecker would also be disappointed by the lack of flying insects during a Maine November.
So I suggested the mystery bird could be an immature yellow-bellied sapsucker. Sapsuckers and northern flickers are the only two Maine woodpeckers that migrate south, but they take their time leaving. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers linger the longest, especially young ones still learning how to feed themselves.
I was wrong, of course. My friend’s subsequent photo confirmed a juvenile red-headed woodpecker. Immature birds lack the distinctive red head, but they display a white belly and even brighter white wing patches that are instantly recognizable.
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
I had one in my own yard on Oct. 17, 2012 — the date digitally imprinted on the photo I took to prove I wasn’t crazy.
Red-bellied woodpeckers pop into Maine every year. One has been visiting a feeder near Lewiston for weeks, and they’ve been documented all the way into Atlantic Canada.
Immature red-headed woodpeckers are the most likely to show up in Maine. Adults apparently have more common sense, or at least a better sense of direction.
This year’s woodpeckers, and the one in my yard in 2012, were all immature. I don’t recall the last time there was a red-headed woodpecker in Maine with an actual red head, but it happens.
But that’s not the weirdest thing. On Nov. 16, Maine recorded its first-ever hybrid yellow-bellied x red-naped sapsucker in Alna, near Damariscotta. Frankly, I didn’t know there was such a thing. Jeff Cherry produced the photos confirming the identification, and I am in awe. I would have immediately passed it off as just the usual yellow-bellied sapsucker youngster.
The two sapsuckers are very similar, except that the red-naped sapsucker has — wait for it — a red nape on the back of the head. In fact, they were considered to be the same species until they were split in 1983.
Yellow-bellied sapsuckers are eastern birds. Red-naped sapsuckers are in the west. I saw my lifer in the Black Hills of South Dakota and was gobsmacked by how similar its behavior was to the sapsuckers I knew at home, especially its fondness for drumming on metal.
Where their ranges overlap, interbreeding occurs regularly — in southwestern Alberta. So for one of those hybrids to show up here is astounding.
And then another woodpecker amazed me this week. An American three-toed woodpecker was photographed at Barred Island Preserve in Stonington. I don’t remember the last time one was seen south of the Golden Road in Millinocket.
Black-backed and American three-toed woodpeckers share similar habitat in northern Maine’s forests. Many Maine birders think both are rare, but that’s mostly because few people feel comfortable birding active logging roads. Because both birds are considered hard-to-spot, naturally I specialize in finding them for my own amusement.
I’ve discovered that black-backed woodpeckers aren’t that uncommon in the north woods; I run into them regularly, and they tend to wander in winter. I’ve had them in my backyard four times.
American three-toed woodpeckers are rarer in Maine and challenging anywhere east of the Great Lakes. They’re North America’s northernmost breeding woodpecker. Though they have been documented south of Millinocket, in my experience they lack the black-backed woodpecker’s tendency to roam. Spotting one in Hancock County is exceptional.
I expected the Stonington woodpecker to turn out to be a misidentified black-backed, but the photos were decent. They showed the unmistakable light-colored back of a three-toed woodpecker.
My New Year’s resolution for 2026: Be wrong less often.
