It wasn’t long ago, just last week, in fact, that I wrote about uncommon birds showing up unexpectedly now and then.

You never know where or when they will appear, I wrote, but being vigilant is the key to finding them.

Not long after that column went to print, I received an email that really drove home that point. Eric from Surry wrote to say he had seen a red-headed woodpecker in his backyard.

When I opened the email, I could see only the text, not the photos. I have no way of knowing one’s bird identification skills when I get an email, so it’s always nice when a photo is attached, regardless of quality, to confirm the sighting.

I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a red-bellied woodpecker, a species that is becoming increasingly common in New Hampshire. Because the red-bellied woodpecker’s head is mostly red, it is often confused with the red-headed woodpecker.

Sure enough, the photo was indeed a red-headed woodpecker. Eric’s photos showed the bird on a tree by a suet feeder. Eric mentioned that the bird also ate mealworms.

While red-bellied woodpeckers have become very common throughout much of New England, red-headed woodpeckers are quite rare in these parts. The range map from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology shows the species as a breeding bird in very small, specific parts of Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The map is blank in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine.

I’ve seen red-headed woodpeckers during visits to see family in Pennsylvania, but I’ve never seen one in New England. I have friends in Connecticut who have seen them in that state, but I haven’t been so lucky yet.

The red-headed woodpecker’s range covers most of the eastern U.S., except for New England. They are medium-sized woodpeckers, smaller than a pileated and bigger than a downy. Unlike the similarly sized red-bellied woodpecker, which has red on the top and back of the head, the red-headed woodpecker’s head is fully red, like it was dipped in rich red paint before being set free in the wild.

The back patterns are different as well. The red-bellied woodpecker has black-and-white barring, while the red-headed has an all-black back with large white wing bars. Both are striking birds, but the red-headed has a cleaner design and the white of the plumage is bright white, as opposed to the off-white of the red-bellied woodpecker.

The two species also have similar calls, although the querulous call of the red-headed is a bit higher pitched.

To add to the confusion, red-bellied woodpecker is not a great name for the bird as the red on the belly is seldom seen and not very pronounced.

A red-headed woodpecker sighting in New England is definitely something to write home about (or to your local bird columnist about.) It’s a perfect example of you never know what you’ll see or where you’ll see it.