June 1999
Las Hoyas, Sierra de Manantlan Biosphere Reserve, Jalisco, México

Take the damn picture already! This Smoky-brown Woodpecker, Veniliornis fumigatus, was pecking into my hand while I tried to maintain my
composure.
Woodpeckers have feet with two toes facing anterially and two facing posterially (zygodactyl) and having barbs on the end of their tongues that
facilitate drilling into the trunks of trees.
Claudet is in the background processing another bird.

We would set up a string of mist-nets generally about an hour before dawn.  The mist-nets were checked for birds in the order in which they were
set up.  We mist-netted almost daily until the early afternoon.  It was tough for me at first to remove birds from the mist-nets but I got really proficient
and quick at it by doing so day after day.  The birds we captured were identified to species, sexed, assessed for breeding condition (brood patch
and cloacal protuberance detection), aged (skull  pneumatization and molt evaluation), and morphometrically measured (i.e. weight, wing chord
length).  Unbanded birds were banded.