Rhinebeck, New York
See all those wood chips at the base of this tree on the edge of the municipal parking lot?
Human vandals at work? Nope. A pair of pileated woodpeckers have torn hell out of the old tree. I think if they keep this up they'll actually take it down.
cropped detail
About half an hour later. The birds paid almost no attention to the cars pulling in and out of the lot, or people getting in and out of the cars. One seemed a little more skittish than the other, moving around to the back side of the tree when I approached within fifteen feet or so. This guy just kept hammering away.
5 comments:
That is really cool :)
We don't see the Pileated around here often, but it is a magnificent bird.
Love those birds. Have you heard their call? Think, Woody Woodpecker.
When we moved in 17 years ago (SE PA), we had some magnificent American elm trees that somehow had escaped the blight. Then, after a summer dry spell, followed by a no-snow winter, blight got to them and the trees began to die off. We had the ones closer to the house cut down, for safety, but left others in the woodlot stand, for the woodpeckers, of which we have several garden variety species. Then the pileated came in, drilling for the really big juicy grubs.
One of the pair kept flying off and coming back, making that eerie call each time.
German trees are safe ;-)
Will there be a follow-up?
It's exotic to me, this bird.
They're pretty unusual around here. We had one for a few days in the woods behind my parents' house in New Jersey when I was a kid. A few years ago there was one seriously excavating a tree next to the post office here in town. In all the time I've spent in various forest parks here in southern New England I don't remember ever hearing their distinctive call.
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