The Morning Porch » pileated woodpecker

Two pileated woodpeckers cackle back...

Dave Bonta — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:09:20 +0000

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.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:06:24 +0000

Two pileated woodpeckers forage in the birches, scarlet crests glowing in the sun, the sky below them in the windshield of a parked truck.

Dave Bonta — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:34:24 +0000

Rain and fog. A pileated woodpecker performs invasive surgery on a locust tree next to the springhouse, removing a malignant colony of ants.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:41:39 +0000

Colored leaves turn backwards in the cold wind—still the same pale green. A pileated woodpecker’s distant chant.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:20:55 +0000

A pileated woodpecker heading for the tall locusts lets out a whoop with every wingbeat, its crest like the bloody barb of a harpoon.

Dave Bonta — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:45:33 +0000

Morning full of the cries of woodpeckers—part ululation, part rusty hinge. Like the sounds the trees make in a winter wind, speeded up.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 15:51:03 +0000

To the south, the hysterical-sounding whoops of a pileated woodpecker. To the north, the rapid taps of a downy, that tachycardia.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 14:26:52 +0000

The snowpack glows in the soft, mid-morning light. A dog barks in the valley. The resonant knocks of a woodpecker opening a new door.

Dave Bonta — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:13:30 +0000

I pause at the door, coffee in hand: six juncos decorate the dead cherry, fat, motionless. A pileated woodpecker cackles at the wood’s edge.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 12:18:52 +0000

Dawn. In absolute silence, a pileated woodpecker hitches its way up a locust trunk, silhouette pivoting like a pawl on an invisible ratchet.