Two pairs of pileated woodpeckers breakfast 100 feet apart, one on adjoining oaks and the other side by side on the trunk of a locust.
The view from my front porch every morning, in 140 or fewer characters
Tag Archives: pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpeckers forage on all...
Pileated woodpeckers forage on all sides, hammering, drumming, cackling, whooping. I feel as if I’m surrounded by a troupe of insane clowns.
Querulous cries of a raccoon, like...
Querulous cries of a raccoon, like lost notes from a soprano clarinet. Two pileateds hammer for their breakfast—an arrhythmic percussion.
Also tagged raccoon
2 Comments
The sun glints off periwinkle leaves...
The sun glints off periwinkle leaves in the yard where snow has just melted. All sounds come from a great distance: crow, woodpecker, train.
Two pileated woodpeckers cackle back...
Two pileated woodpeckers cackle back and forth. Patches of moss at the woods’ edge seem to glow in the dim light. The smell of rain.
Also tagged moss
5 Comments
Two pileated woodpeckers forage in...
Two pileated woodpeckers forage in the birches, scarlet crests glowing in the sun, the sky below them in the windshield of a parked truck.
Also tagged black birch, trucks
2 Comments
Rain and fog. A pileated woodpecker...
Rain and fog. A pileated woodpecker performs invasive surgery on a locust tree next to the springhouse, removing a malignant colony of ants.
Also tagged black locust, fog, rain, springhouse
1 Comment
Colored leaves turn backwards in the...
Colored leaves turn backwards in the cold wind—still the same pale green. A pileated woodpecker’s distant chant.
Also tagged fall foliage, wind
1 Comment
A pileated woodpecker heading for the...
A pileated woodpecker heading for the tall locusts lets out a whoop with every wingbeat, its crest like the bloody barb of a harpoon.
Also tagged black locust
1 Comment
Morning full of the cries of woodpeckers...
Morning full of the cries of woodpeckers—part ululation, part rusty hinge. Like the sounds the trees make in a winter wind, speeded up.
Also tagged flicker, red-bellied woodpecker
4 Comments
