American Three-toed Woodpecker

Not a very good photo, but am posting it because it shows this rare (in Alberta) American Three-toed Woodpecker's face and the gorgeous yellow patch on the head. On 17 August 2013, I went for a walk in Brown-Lowery Provincial Park, SW of Calgary. A group of people were going with Friends of Fish Creek Park, so, even though I was not going with them, I at least knew that there would be plenty of humans to chase away the Cougars and Bears : ) Normally, I barely go into the park, but this time got far enough to come across a family of three Three-toed Woodpeckers. They ignored me completely and continued to search for food and, in this photo, to do the occasional bit of preening.

Yesterday, after my volunteer shift, I called in at a shopping centre to see if a small computer store was still in existence. A number of years ago, they did such a good job of transferring all the data from one computer to a new one for me. The time to go through all this has again rolled around and I was hoping so much that the same store would be there. I was so relieved to find it and now have to face the nerve-wracking time of getting used to a new machine (with Windows 7, not 8!). My new computer is still in its box (since late December), waiting for the day when I finally get myself sufficiently organized to bring it out, and that day is almost here. Really, really hoping it won't be too difficult to set up and then work out how to use it. Guessing it will be maybe three days or so that I will be without a computer, so when I suddenly "disappear" next week, you will know the reason : )