Posted by Mark Brown (204.48.169.252) on November 13, 2002 at 12:32:53:
This appears to me to be a female adult Ladder-backed Woodpecker. With the ladder-backeds the white bars on the back are broader than the black bars. Also the black stripes on the face are thinner than the Nuttall's. Sibley's shows a thick solid black on the upper back for the Nuttall's. But he also shows that darker adult females can have a stripe of black on the upper back. I can not see the color of the lores. Bent says the egg dates for Ladder-backed is April 11-May 9. This photo's date is April 20, about right. I think this bird is excavating its nest cavity. W. Leon Dawson in his Birds of California states that the Nuttall's males do all the excavating. Therefore this is a Ladder-backed.