I was out in the foothills early one morning last week when I thought I heard the tap-tap-tapping of a woodpecker. There were no trees anywhere, but I saw some motion in a shadowy cholla nearby. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was until a bird flew out and onto another cholla.
It was a ladder-backed woodpecker. I’d never seen a woodpecker of any kind on cholla before.
Cholla looks fleshy but, like sahuaro cactuses, it has a wooden skeleton.
I loved the contrast between the woodpecker and his surroundings.