Cheri

Yup. Thanks! Sure looks like one. I googled Arizona hummingbirds and looked at photos of a Gila Woodpecker that didn’t really resemble this guy much. But after specifically googling “Gila Woodpecker”, the photos I see do resemble this guy.

Thanks in advance for your interest and/or help. We have a woodpecker of some type that just loves to drink from our hummingbird feeder, which hangs from our patio roof, even though it’s awkward for him/her. It’s much more skittish than the hummingbirds, and if I attempt to sneak out the patio door to get a closer look, it flies off before I even make it out the door, usually landing in a bushy tree in our neighbor’s yard over the back fence. Well, I decided to take a bunch of pictures of it through the window from a distance, so as not to scare it away. Then I cropped them and put them in an animated format. The lighting wasn’t great in the morning, and all you could see was a black silhouette, but you can see a bit of it’s feet/claws and tail feathers. I tried it again late in the afternoon with much better results. If you watch the second animation all the way through, you’ll see a better example of its coloring, and that it has a red spot on it’s crown. I think it’s a very light brownish gray or tannish gray color on its head and underneath, with blackish stripes on its back/wings/tail feathers. We live in the North Phoenix metro area, and I took the photos today, 8/12/18. We live near a golf course and man made lake, but our back yard hasn’t been landscaped yet. No greenery or even desert plants or cacti back there. We put the hummingbird feeder up only a couple weeks ago, and I noticed the woodpecker for the first time about a week ago. He has been by more and more frequently every day. Thanks again for your interest and help in identifying this woodpecker. I wonder if the sugar water in the feeder is good for him/her.