Sitting on the ridgetop I become subject to the crows’ concern. A pileated woodpecker veers from its course. The sun comes up.
pileated woodpecker
Milk-white sky and the white noise of tree crickets. A pileated woodpecker cackles to herself at the top of a tall locust.
Clear and cold. Sunlight fills the tall tulip tree, which is shaped like martini glass, from the top down. A woodpecker duets with his echo.
Drizzle falling on an inch of sleet: the ground is white again. A pileated woodpecker’s hollow toc toc toc.
After yesterday’s melting and last night’s rain, it feels like March. A pileated woodpecker drums on a resonant specimen of the standing dead.
Another clear, cold sunrise urged on by nuthatches and titmice. As the western ridge turns red, a pileated woodpecker chimes in.
Cold but not freezing mizzle. Two pileated woodpeckers work the woods’ edge, tilting their heads to the side between taps. A flock of juncos.
The lacework of branches against the sky, with the half moon high overhead. A pileated woodpecker cackles. A small cloud’s belly turns pink.
Spring peeper just after moonset. Then whippoorwill. Wood thrush. Carolina wren. Phoebe. A pileated woodpecker cackles and it’s day.
A brief glimpse of sun through the mist and rain-soaked leaves. Then back to the humdrum of pewee and pileated woodpecker.
Overcast and damp, with woodpecker rattle and squirrel-claw clatter and an exuberant robin duetting with his echo.
Sun in the tops of the pines. The sine curve of a pileated woodpecker’s flight path over the house. Her mad cackle after she lands.
Snowstorm. The hammer-blows of a pileated woodpecker on what must be a very hollow dead tree. How annoyed I’d be if it were a human sound!
Five doves sit motionless in the crabapple. The drumming of a pileated woodpecker seemingly in response to metallic banging from the quarry.