It's so cold on our ridge—the temperature's not forecast to get out of the teens—that much of my activity centers around keeping the voracious appetites of two wood stoves satisfied. Since the temperature inside the house remains above freezing, I guess I've been up to the task. In between frigid trips to the woodpile, I've been birdwatching and attempting to resolve a couple of dilemmas that, despite the title of this entry, are only marginally concerned with woodpeckers. To be sure, it is sometimes maddeningly difficult to tell the difference between Downy and Hairy woodpeckers, but, based on the relatively small overall size, the length of the bill (fairly small), and that conspicuous feather tuft in front of the eyes, this is probably a Downy. The dilemmas, however, are more about image quality than identification. The kind owner of the Sigma supertelephoto, my go-to bird lens, would like the beast back, and this poses a couple of questions: can I still hand-hold such a monster, and what can I replace it with? Based on the sharpness of this image, I'd say yes to the first question. The answer to the second remains under intense internal debate.