Pileated woodpecker threading the trees: black and white wings slow as an old film flicker behind the pink and green pixels of new leaves.
pileated woodpecker
Thursday March 05, 2020
Her shadow draws my eye to the pileated woodpecker flying as silently as a pickpocket’s hand from one trunk to the next. A flash of crimson.
Thursday February 20, 2020
Palefaced sky with its one glowing orifice. The woodpeckers are busy with surgeries, removing delicious infestations from limb after limb.
Wednesday February 12, 2020
Sunlight filtered through thin clouds looks somehow warmer than it is. Silence embellished by the resonant knocks of a pileated woodpecker.
Sunday January 05, 2020
Snowflakes in the air give shape to the wind. I sneeze, and a pileated woodpecker emerges from the far side of an oak and flies off.
Sunday December 08, 2019
Soft light on the hard frost: more glimmer than glitter. A pileated woodpecker’s kak kak kak like a high-pitched engine trying to start.
Thursday November 21, 2019
A hollow, rasping grunt: either a raven or a buck in rut. The pileated woodpecker cackling in flight falls silent as soon as she lands.
Monday November 18, 2019
The damp silence inside a cloud, broken only by a pileated woodpecker’s muffled tapping and the distant caw of a crow.
Tuesday April 30, 2019
Gray and cool. The first hummingbird zooms past. A pileated woodpecker flies in to hammer the old butternut stump, keeping a wary eye on me.
Thursday February 14, 2019
Bright and cold. Echoing off the ice, the back-and-forth love notes of pileated woodpeckers bashing their heads against dead tree limbs.