A downy woodpecker lands on the dead elm, his black-and-white feathers against the barkless trunk as startling and dramatic as a totem pole.
downy woodpecker
Darkening sky. A downy woodpecker gleaning breakfast from the dead cherry’s flaking limbs pauses to scratch his face with one fast foot.
To the south, the hysterical-sounding whoops of a pileated woodpecker. To the north, the rapid taps of a downy, that tachycardia.
So quiet, the downy woodpecker tapping a dead branch sounds as loud as a pile driver. High overhead, the half moon like a big right ear.
Highway noise from over the ridge; a whiff of diesel. A downy woodpecker going up the dead elm passes a nuthatch going down.
A chipmunk dashes over the snow from one tree melt-hole to another. A downy woodpecker finds a hollow limb that makes him sound enormous.
A morning for woodpeckers: I hear the trilling of a red-bellied, the cackling of a pileated, and a downy’s steady trepanning of a maple.
Gray mid-morning, and the sound of bells comes and goes on the wind. A downy woodpecker telegraphs his hunger from a limb of the big maple.
The sun peeks out for half a minute from under a lid of clouds. The downy woodpecker finds a resonant bone of locust and rattles it hard.