THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
by Dennis Davenport
It was December 23, 2009, at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Ridgefield, WA. I was heading around the 4.2 mile auto tour and had almost gotten to post #5 (for those who are familiar with the refuge). I noticed a Downy Woodpecker only about five feet off the edge of the gravel road outside my driver’s side window.
I quietly got my camera into position. It was early morning and this area was still in shade so I used flash to make sure I had some light. The bird kept flying between a tree trunk and some kind of plant on the edge of the road. The tree wasn’t far away either, so he was never more than about 12 feet away.
I took a lot of shots of this bird—that’s what most of us do when we get an up close opportunity like this. To me the bird seemed to be behaving quite normally and I had no reason to think there was anything wrong with the bird. But when I got home to look at the pictures, my daughter, who just happened to be with me at the time, noticed something on the back of the woodpecker. It was greenish and was almost completely buried under the back feathers of the bird.
I posted a series of the shots to my Flickr account right away and began asking folks to give their opinions about what this might be on the bird’s back. Some folks thought it might be an injury of some kind that hadn’t healed yet. Others thought it was some type of amphibian.
After over 2000 views on Flickr, it was determined that the object on the back of the Downy Woodpecker was a Pacific Tree Frog. Laypersons and experts alike, studied the photo and there were many guesses as to what the frog was doing on this bird. Of course we’ll never know for sure but I think it’s just a “freak” of nature that the frog ended up there—a one in a million chance.
The series of photos generated quite a bit of interest and is by far my most viewed posting to Flickr.
Click Here to go to my website to see one of the shots. There’s a link in the caption of this photo that will take you to Flickr for more views of this strange occurrence and the discussion that went on in comments.
To see more of Dennis's images Click Here or visit his website at: http://dennisdavenportphotography.com/ .
