Melanie, great photos! The Pileated Woodpecker pics are really excellent. For the photos where you were in deep shade, you might try raising the exposure by one or two stops - that way the birds will be nicely visible, although the sky will be overexposed (so pale). If you have some kind of photo processing software, you can do it after you have taken the pic. I took the liberty of downloading and editing one of your pics, so you can see what happens:

Thanks, everyone! And thanks Mika for the photo advice! I'm still super excited to see such a large woodpecker. And to hear it pecking away. They sure can make some noise!

They really are handsome creatures - it's great to be able to see them, via your photos! So

Congrats Melanie on your first Pileated!!! Really nice photos too. It's hard to get them without blur when they're pecking. I was shooting one the other day & they bang that head so fast it comes out blurry often.

Wow Mika, what a difference in that photo of the red bellied. What photo editing program are you using? That's amazing!

Melanie, just wait until that Pileated WP starts pecking like that on your rain gutters! At oh-dark-thirty in the morning. They do make holes to find bugs but they also "drum" to declare their territory. What a racket.

We have a really tall, fat dead hollow oak they like to drum on. It sounds like we live in the Congo.

Even the little Red-Bellied Woodpeckers have made quite the racket around here. I hate to think what a Pileated could do!

Oh, and some of my pictures were quite blurry, but I only post the best ones for you guys. I tell the butterfly thread the same thing. Just keep taking pictures and odds are you'll get at least one good one!

Ann, I think that any photo processing software will be able to adjust the exposure - it's a pretty basic function. All I did was increase the exposure a bit. Many cameras will let you do that within the camera itself. The software I use is Photoshop, but only because I need it for making lecture slides and I get it very cheaply as an educator. Photoshop Elements is cheaper than the full Photoshop, but there's plenty of inexpensive and even free photo processing software out there.

An alternative to processing after taking a shot is to spot-focus your camera on the part of the photo you want to be perfectly exposed (so here on the bird that is back-lit). That's what I did for the eagle pics I posted recently (and is also why the sky is so pale in most of them). Two routes to the same effect!

We have had a sharp shinned hawk hanging around this winter (looking for easy prey at the feeders). This is the first chance I've had to try to get a picture. (I only have a point and shoot camera that is new and I am still learning it, so forgive the poor quality.) In the summer we have a Cooper's Hawk that comes to the birdbath almost every day.

Congrats Melanie on seeing your first pileated woodpecker!!!! They are quite large and it is always exciting to see one.

Wow, great photo! That's the first sharp shinned hawk I've seen, Hope you're able to post a photo of the Cooper's Hawk when it returns.

Peggy,..well done capturing the image of your Sharp Skinned Hawk,..he looks a beauty

That is a nice photo Peggy.

Thanks for the picture of the sharp shinned hawk. I know we have them in Michigan but I have never seen a pic of one before.

Congrats Melanie, on seeing your first Pileated woodpecker, they truly are awesome looking birds!

In 2014 we had a young red tailed hawk that made himself quite at home around our place. He was way less wary than the cooper's or sharp shinned hawks. We could get within about 20 feet and he would just look at us while we stood there. He also loved the bird bath and would stand in it 30 - 40 minutes and once we clocked him at over an hour. I had really hoped he would come back this past summer but we never saw him and the cooper's hawk got to spend more time in the bird bath.

Cool!

Peggy,..cool and refreshing interesting about the Red Tailed Hawk,..shame it didn't return.

Since Lin usually does it and she has been MIA for a few days, I started a new thread for March, just a day or two late:
The thread "Bird photos - March 2016" in Gardening for Butterflies, Birds and Bees forum

Please come on over! Lots of bird action going on these days, take pictures!

Hi everyone, I have been MIA for awhile! I've been sick with the flu for the past 10+ days now ... worried that it had progressed to bronchitis but I'm feeling better; I just still have a horrible cough and no energy whatsoever. My husband was sick with it too and we're both wishing we'd gotten our flu shots ... next season we will not forget because this stuff has kicked our butts!

I'm going to try to catch up on the threads and photos in the next couple of days!