Being eyed up by the woodpecker

I have been trying to get on with tasks which I have been procrastinating about for too long.  I did get started but it didn't last.  One of my problems was that two woodpeckers are visiting the feeders very regularly at the moment and my quest to get a good picture of one flying keeps taking priority.

I prepared the camera with my longest zoom and had it at the ready close to the patio door, so that I could react quickly when I saw the woodpecker arrive at the feeder. But each time I missed the shot for one reason or another. Either I was too slow, or it became frightened and flew swiftly away.  Soon after Helena returned home this afternoon I did stand at the doorway and with the focus preset on a point down the garden I did get a useably sharp image of it with its wings spread. I have added it as an 'Extra photo'.

I made a cup of tea for us both and then joined Helena out in the cabin where she was relaxing after work with a good book. I sat with the main window ajar and waited for another shot at the woodpecker.  A pair of bullfinches appeared and amused me with their feeding habits on the hanging sunflower seed feeder. They were perched on opposite sides of the feeder, vying with each other to stuff as much in their mouths as possible, much of the crushed seeds falling from their mouths to the ground.

Then a woodpecker appeared and didn't seem concerned to eat from the peanut feeder at all. Instead it hopped about the rhus tree and looked across the patio at me. So I'm pleased to have been able to get some sharp shots even though my camera was set with a high iso. Next I must get a sharp close-up of it flying as I really like the shapes of their wings when spread wide in flight and the polka-dot patterns of its markings which then appear.