Downy, hairy, red-bellied and pileated: all the woodpeckers for miles around are suddenly drumming, one after another, as the scattered clouds turn orange on a crisp, nearly frosty morning.
pileated woodpecker
Thick fog at dawn, full of robin song and phoebe calls. Sunrise is signalled by little more than the growing thunder of pileated woodpeckers.
Crystal-clear sunrise, with a bluebird warbling by the barn. A downy woodpecker at the woods’ edge has found the perfect tenor-tuned snag to rattle, in response to a distant pileated woodpecker’s thunder.
Misty and gray, with endless commentary from crows. The sun appears for half a minute without coming fully out, as pileated woodpeckers cackle in the yard.
The gray supremacy of fog, filtering out the valley’s noise, leaving only the drumming of woodpeckers and the low rumble of a jet high overhead.
A heavy, gray sky that from time to time emits a shimmer of fine precipitation. Woodpeckers’ rhythms turn irregular as they move from their drumming trees to their dining trees. A bit of highway noise for the first time in a week.
A wedge of blue sky opens at sunrise. Four pileated woodpeckers in the hollow take turns drumming, two low, two high. Half an hour later, it’s gray and quiet.
A clear morning at last, the hollow echoing with woodpecker drums. The last few patches of ice are as dull as the eyes of a corpse.
Freezing mist—enough for drip-line percussion from the roof. The waxy chatter of finches up at my mother’s feeders. Down in the hollow, the thunder of a pileated woodpecker.
Well below freezing at sunrise. A pileated woodpecker drums as if it were already courtship season. Two squirrels briefly touch noses, then back away and resume solitary foraging.
A shimmer of rain, which the roof gathers into a smattering of drips. A pileated woodpecker flies over, yelling its head off. A pair of catbirds exchange notes.
Breezy and cool. A pileated woodpecker hops along a log fallen into the meadow, her scarlet crest bobbing among the dames’-rocket.
Warm rain. The hollow echoes with pileated woodpecker drumming and the REEP, REEP calls of great-crested flycatchers. In the yard, an American redstart is singing one of his least forgettable songs.
Rain. The endlessness of red-eyed vireo song. A drumming pileated woodpecker switches to a higher octave.