I had never heard of the Imperial Woodpecker of Mexico.  I was amazed to see the video of the last recorded one.  An impressive, beautiful bird, sadly lost.

I was surprised to learn that the Acorn Woodpeckers actually have a family and they all work together gathering the acorns for the winter months.

I was amazed to learn how many species there are and that they are distributed almost worldwide. I'm fascinated by the colors exhibited by members of this family, not just the black, white, and red I'm used to.

Learning about the different local woodpecker species is what helped spark my interest in birding. I never realized how my local woodpeckers were just the tip of the iceberg. I'm amazed to learn about how different woodpeckers look and behave in different parts of the world! I also found the acorn woodpecker to be incredibly interesting and would love to watch them sometime in the future.

I'm surprised there are so many colors of woodpeckers, as I have only ever seen black, white, and red! The idea of mimicry is also fascinating to me. So strange that birds looking so much alike could be completely different species!

I am surprised by the number of species, how wide-ranging woodpeckers are, and how different they look from other woodpecker species.

The most significant thing about woodpeckers, to me, is that they remind us to preserve forests. Where would the woodpeckers be if there were no more trees? Even a dead, dry tree is of great value! That's why we created a nature reserve in Colombia called Los Carpinteros (Woodpeckers), to protect what little wildlife remains.

The acorn woodpecker! I had never heard of this fabulous creature and now it is my mission to travel where I can see them!

I've seen different species of woodpeckers around the world, including Canada, USA, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Japan, China, Germany... I did see those who look alike, especially flamebacks. Before I entered my observations in eBird, I thought those Flamebacks were all the same genus... but they were not!! Haven't seen any piculets yet but I hope one day will be my lucky day.

Learning about the Wyrnecks and Piculets was fascinating!  I assumed all woodpeckers were primary cavity nesters and had stiff tail feathers for stability during hitching.

For some reason I thought Northern Flickers and Gila Woodpeckers were the exception in that they are not black, red, and white. The color options of woodpeckers is really amazing.

I was surprised to learn that there are so many around the world. Learning about how the acorn woodpecker stores acorns and that they live is groups really surpeised me.

We were shocked to learn that downies and hairies aren't closely related! Woodpeckers are even more complex than we realized :)

I really didn't realize how diverse they were!

I am amazed at how colorful woodpeckers can be and how two species can look so much alike. I enjoyed seeing the video of the woodpecker flake off big chunks of bark and how many insects were there to snack on.

I was most surprised by how pervasive woodpeckers are in the world. Same. So well distributed and so many species!

I did not know that the yellow bellied sapsucker migrated so far. 4800 miles. That’s crazy!

Wait! Maybe most surprising was the Wryneck imitating a snake.

It's surprising to learn that Downy and Hairy aren't that closely related and that the Hairy is more closely related to the Arizona. But I never imagined so many colorful woodpeckers such as the Yellow-fronted!

I did not realize that there were so many varieties and the colors of the others outside the US were just remarkable! Also, the smaller Piculet woodpeckers did not even look like what I think of as a woodpecker. Truly amazing!

how many look similar.  I have traveled to CA many times and I have often wondered who made those acorn holes. Now I know!

The behavior of the Acorn Woodpecker was fascinating and unexpected. I have never seen acorn granaries before even though I have been in the range of these birds on several occasions. The other surprising item was the visual similarity of fairly unrelated woodpecker species.

I am more familiar with American woodpecker species, so I enjoyed getting an introduction to the true woodpeckers found throughout the world. I also found it interesting to learn about the woodpeckers' cousins the piculets and wrynecks as they were new birds for me! I had heard about some woodpeckers who would nest in cacti, but woodpeckers using rocks was new to me. Finally, Acorn Woodpeckers are one of my favorites, so I enjoyed learning about telling males and females apart as it was new to me.

I was surprised to learn where there are no woodpeckers: Australia, New Zealand, Madagascar (and less surprising) certain islands. I thought that surely Australia would have some!

i had only recently learned that the downy and hairy woodpeckers were a result of convergent evolution and were not closely related.  It is interesting to me to see how many of the world's woodpeckers share that trait of convergent evolution.