Anyways, something to think about…thanks for the post!

In the mid 1990’s, I had a couple stop by who had been travelling and camping across the southwest. They told me about an unusual bird they saw while camping in the higher back country of Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona. What they described to me sounded like an Imperial Woodpecker and I told them so at the time. They had never heard of an Imperial Woodpecker, but said that it was the largerst woodpecker that had ever seen, described it as about the size of a crow or raven(don’t recall now just which they said) and that it was black/dark, had a prominent bright red crest, and some prominent white on the wings. I took their names, which I couldn’t put my hands back on right now, but could possibly recover, as I was keeping a daily diary in those days. As I recall, I even tried to call someone at Chiricahua National Monument to tell them about the sighting, but it didn’t seem to generate much interest. If they recorded my call, they could still possibly have a record of the dates, times, exact or near location, and the people involved as well.

Water under the bridge at this point, but none-the-less, interesting to those who might wonder about an Imperial Woodpecker finding it’s way into the United States. We apparently have Jaguars in the the border country these days, who is to say that an Imperial might not have paid us a visit as well?

Maybe during the Pluvial period during the last ice age, when pine forests grew in the valleys of the US Southwest, the Imperial Woodpecker may have dwelt there also. Well, it’s just a thought.