Pileated woodpeckers, Lake Accotink Park, VA

The pileated woodpecker is the most spectacular woodpecker in the east.  I have photographed many of them, but have never got "the shot" of one of them.  This drives me a bit nuts, and I keep trying.

So I saw one at Lake Accotink Park, and took a photo.

Pileated woodpecker at Lake Accotink Park, Virginia

Another not awesome photo of the bird.  They like to be around these trees with vines on them, seeming to like the berries on the vines, but it makes it hard to get a good photo.  So I tried again.

A decent photo, but not the angle to show all the field marks.

I kinda accidentally grabbed this photo of a pileated in flight as I was framing it up just as it took off.

Pileated woodpeckers can fly through vines, and land on them although they usually end up upside down on such thin things

And then there were two woodpeckers.  I never saw the second one until it showed up on the same tree as the one I was looking at.

These photos aren't my best work, but two pileated in the same frame seem worth publishing

And to finish with the photos, a third pileated woodpecker showed up. 

Three pileated woodpeckers in the vines around a sycamore tree.

And to finish with the text, in the same tree was a flicker (a type of woodpecker), a downy woodpecker and a red-bellied woodpecker.  My photos of the others aren't up to my standards for publishing here.  But it certainly was a woodpecker-friendly tree.