The New Jersey License Plate Bird -Red-headed Woodpecker (RHW)

Threatened in New Jersey and declining across its range the red-headed woodpecker is arguably our states most spectacular woodpecker - threatened, likely due to its reclusive habitat - flooded timber - aka swamps. This is not to say they don't like edges, or upland forests, or recent clearings with scattered trees, its just they've developed a propensity for bottomland wetlands with a healthy density of deadwood - (an oxymoron I know). The image I grabbed here is that of a RHW being chased from a log baited with suet chunks by its arch nemesis - the Red-bellied woodpecker. The redheads are very skittish when confronted with habitat dominated by red-bellies - partially explains why their are more red-bellies than redheads. The image was taken in Troy Meadows Preserve in northcentral New Jersey, an area that has been hit hard by the Emerald Ash Borer and explains why the preserve is rife with dead ash trees; and why the preserve is not at a loss for woodpecker species. In point of fact it is the only place I know in New Jersey where you can document all of New Jersey's breeding woodpeckers from one location before lunch on any given April morning: red-headed, red-bellied, northern flicker, downy, hairy, yellow-bellied sapsucker, and pileated woodpeckers.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-headed_Woodpecker/overview