pileated woodpecker – The Morning Porch/Patio

Sunday January 05, 2020

Dave Bonta January 5, 2020 1

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.

Dave Bonta December 8, 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.

Dave Bonta 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.

Dave Bonta 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.

Dave Bonta 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.

Dave Bonta February 14, 2019 1

Bright and cold. Echoing off the ice, the back-and-forth love notes of pileated woodpeckers bashing their heads against dead tree limbs.

Dave Bonta January 27, 2019 2

Trees at the woods’ edge with their branches out to catch all the light they can—or in this case, snow. A pileated woodpecker’s flaming cap.

Dave Bonta January 13, 2019

Woodpeckers big and small are tapping on trees without disturbing the snow on every branch. Hibernating insects will never hear the knock.

Dave Bonta January 11, 2019 2

A new addition to the forest’s ensemble of creaks. The drumming of two pileated woodpeckers a quarter mile apart, fast as machine gun fire.

Dave Bonta January 5, 2019 1

Staccato sounds: the distant drumming of a pileated woodpecker, a white-breasted nuthatch’s agitated call, rain tapping on the roof. Again.