This beautiful bird camped out on a holly bush in front of my office Friday, perhaps to fill up before the storm. I grabbed a Canon DSLR with a 600mm telephoto lens I keep handy for animal events.
One advantage of the Canon R8 and big telephoto is that you can really zoom in on a subject with little loss of resolution. It also will autofocus on a bird or animal eye to make sure focus is tack sharp. Note the detail in the zoomed in image. Animal photography is one are where phone cameras can’t compete with traditional digital SLR cameras.
Pileated woodpeckers (dryocopus pileatus) are common in the US. Is this a male or female? It’s hard to tell but check out the Wikipedia entry to compare images.
Way back in 2001 before phone cameras I did a video of a woodpecker with a digital camcorder for Janie’s niece.