Dull

Pileated woodpecker

Winter didn’t have much of a bite this year, but that hasn’t kept it from refusing to give up the stage. This weekend and today I’ve had a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain.  On Saturday I saw robins in the snow, though they didn’t appear unduly deterred by the weather.

The days never got very bright, and the gloomy skies that characterized so much of this past winter continued.  I’ve been trying to see this Pan-STARRS comet for days now, foiled each time by poor weather. Northern areas have had good aurora borealis displays, too, and if any of them reached this far south, I would never know it.

The landscape is dull and brown. Any thought the tender shoots had of pushing through the ground is on hold until the weather improves, which doesn’t look as though it will happen this week.  So is March 2013 a lamb or a lion?  So far it’s neither. Perhaps it’s more of a housecat or a full grown sheep .  Not a lamb and not a lion and more than a little dull.

My photo today is of a distant pileated woodpecker that was working furiously on that stump.  He didn't stay around long enough for me to switch to my long lens. Pity.

Online free weekend

I spent my weekend free of online distractions, filling it instead not with music or some other distraction, but with the natural sounds and sights of the forest around me for company. Now that spring is here, the woods are getting noisier again and are a far cry from the silence of winter, even one in which that season never fully arrived.

The pileated woodpeckers are still screaming around my cabin, screaming at everything in sight, whether vulture or dog or blue jay or me. Nothing gets by them and everything is cause for alarm. I have seen them in two different nest holes. Perhaps the female hasn’t yet decided which she prefers. Her mate proves his devotion and protection capabilities for his future family by his near-constant alarm calls.

I’d rather be distracted by the pileated woodpeckers than by news that isn’t very newsworthy, weather news that doesn’t show anything severe or by music that hides the sound of these everyday woodland dramas. I also stopped reading my newspaper during and after breakfast so I can watch what’s going on in the woods outside my door. It’s one thing to bury my nose in the paper during winter when it’s too dark to see past the back deck, but now that the mornings are light again, the news of the woods is a lot more pertinent to my daily life than the latest goings on half a world away.

Distractions, unfortunately, are a part of life, especially modern life. And yet today I find myself resisting the pull of the technology. Something that takes my attention away from what is happening around me is something that serves to separate me from my own senses. Television or telephones or computers are like a shield that prevents me from fully experiencing the life around me. Even important information and beautiful music draw me away from that, making everything that’s at hand less noticeable. It’s not just cellphones that distract.

This morning before the sun was well up, the vultures were coursing through the air behind the cabin. Some are likely migrants taking advantage of the strong breeze. Others are certainly local birds, perhaps kept from foraging by rain that kept the air heavy during much of the weekend. The breeze was just right for these big birds, strong enough to help them move around, but not so strong as to make fighting it difficult.

Juncos are still in my woods. The warm spring is not yet urging them to head northwards. They are twittering their spring songs, though, so the trip north can’t be far away for them. Also singing now are titmice and chickadees, towhees and cardinals, to name a few. I looked for warblers this weekend on the mountain but didn’t find any. I wasn’t really surprised by that, even if it didn’t stop me from looking.

The leaves are peeking out a little more each day. It is early for that to happen. The cooler weather of the weekend does seem to have slowed that progression down a little bit for the moment. Warmer weather at midweek will likely speed the process up again.

The only way I know of to keep in touch with my own senses is to use them, to feel the air and see the wildlife and notice how the rising sun slowly uncovers the mountain each morning. Those things are real and are in front of me. I never want distractions or entertainment to get in the way of that.

More explosions

 After a warm and sunny week, the weekend at Roundtop was a washout—until around 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon when the sun finally appeared. At that point, it was too late to do much exploring in the woods, and everything was still wet and dripping anyway. I did, however, retire to the back deck and spend an hour or so enjoying the feel of the sun on my neck.



I also saw the northbound migration of several black vultures, with a few turkey vultures that did not appear to be local adding to the mix. A red-tailed hawk that may or may not have been a local bird circled in a northbound direction, too. But the real drama came from the local pileated and red-bellied woodpeckers who were involved in a screeching match over something. 



The pileated woodpeckers circled around the cabin, causing an awful racket. They would disappear, still screeching, to the north only to circle around from the south and swoop through the forest again, still raucous. The red-bellied woodpecker mostly ignored the pileated woodpeckers, holding its ground on a dead limb. When the pileated swooped by, the red-bellied would toss off some woodpeckery and possibly vulgar retort, and the whole drama would begin again. Who ever said the woods are quiet?



More flowers popped up in the woods, with coltsfoot, which is normally the earliest of the blooms, finally making an appearance. My favorite local fern, still growing out of a crack in a boulder along the edge of the lane to the cabin, has begun to unfurl its fronds. The rue anemone (or is it a spring beauty?) is blooming as well. When the leaves are no more unfurled than these are, I can’t tell the two apart, even when I have an identification guide in my hands.



The trees are beginning to leaf out, even up on Roundtop Mtn. Down in the valley and off the mountain, there’s no “beginning” about the leafing. They are out and are a good 6 weeks earlier than they should be, to boot. 

Forest wars

My cabin is the battleground for a major avian war this week. The pileated woodpeckers are causing a near-constant ruckus. It started on Saturday and was still going on as of last evening.

Pileated woodpeckers are a large bird and make a lot of noise even on a good day. The local pair is nesting, I believe, in a tree at the back of the cabin. On Saturday morning I heard the woodpeckers fussing and screeching, which isn’t unusual. Something always sets them off. They return fire with scolds and screeches for a few minutes and then the perceived danger leaves and the forest returns to quiet. Except that this week the return to quiet part hasn’t happened.

With the woods so thick with leaves, it was hard to see what was going on at first, though I’ve caught glimpses of the birds swooping and looping in those rare moments when they are visible. And then on Saturday, I finally got to see what was going on. A second male pileated woodpecker is apparently trying to lure the female away or perhaps just hoping to extend his territory so that it overlaps with that of the nesting pair. In any event, the actions of the second male are destroying forest harmony around my cabin. Just when I think the dust is settling, male #2 drums on a tree, and that sets off the whole round of screeching and swooping yet again. Even the dogs notice.

Baby Dog, the self-appointed forest police force, is the worst. When the pileated woodpeckers really get going, she chimes in with her alarm barking. Her barking awakens Dog from his elderly slumber and then he joins in. Two barking dogs soon equals two howling dogs, and sometimes even the dogs half a mile away add to the chaos. Why I ever thought that living in the woods was peaceful is a thought I have been disabused of this week, that’s for sure.

Of course my photos today depict none of this. At least they look as though my forest is filled with peace and quiet.

What the Woodpecker Did

These lovely woodpecker holes were made by one or more of the local pileated woodpeckers, those clownish-looking Woody Woodpecker types that are a cousin of the larger and scarily elusive Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Most woodpecker-drilled holes are far up in a tree, certainly too high up for me to reach. But pileated woodpeckers, indeed most northerly species of woodpeckers, drill their holes near the base of trees. And since this lovely work of woodpecker art is at the end of my driveway, my investigation of these holes was an easy prospect.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit that these were the first woodpecker holes I’ve ever gotten up close and personal with. This seems as though it should have been something I did 30 years ago, but I didn’t (unless I’ve forgotten, which these days is a possibility). Oh, I know I’ve seen pileated woodpecker holes plenty of times, but I never actually took the time to stick my nose into one, as it were.

My first impression of the holes was a surprise. These holes go deep into the tree, all the way into the very center of this now-dead oak tree, far deeper than I expected. Another characteristic seen here, also typical of holes excavated by pileated woodpeckers, is the somewhat rectangular shape to the hole. Pileated woodpeckers are looking for ants when they are digging into these trees, though I wouldn’t have expected the ants to be this deep into the center of the tree. Obviously, I was wrong about that one.

The inside and bottom of the hole is solid, not soft with sawdust, as I expected. Currently, I have several nearby trees that show a lot of attention from the pileated woodpeckers. Sometimes, the birds will drill so deeply into a tree that it falls. That’s a possibility with this tree, if the woodpeckers keep at it. It’s a good thing my electric lines are buried, I guess, though there is that one pileated-drilled tree near the cabin that I’d better keep a closer eye on.

Grandmother Nature's Practical Joke

Wasn't it only yesterday that I was complaining that I hadn't seen a pileated woodpecker for entire the 31 days of January? Didn't I just wonder why I hadn't seen a song sparrow in all of January?

So how is that yesterday, in the space of an hour without ever leaving the cabin, that I saw both of them? I didn't get a photo of the song sparrow, so you'll have to take my word on that one, but I do have proof for the pileated.

The photo is not the best, but it was taken through my second floor window, looking down at one of the trees next to the cabin. I have about a dozen photos, of which this is about the best. Pileated woodpeckers move quickly, I discovered. So I have blurred photos, photos of the red head only, of the beak only, of the tail only....you get the idea.

I'd no sooner grabbed this photo and gone downstairs to put the camera away when I saw a song sparrow in the feeder. So, after not seeing either species throughout all of January, both show up as soon as February begins.

And before I move on, what's your take on the pronounciation of this species? Are you a "pill-e-ated" or a "pile-ated" pronouncer? I started out as "pile-ated" before I ever heard anyone pronounce it, but as soon as I met a few good birders, they all said "pill-e-ated" so that how I say it now.

September 13, 2005

For the past week, each time I’ve entered my driveway, I’ve startled a male pileated woodpecker who has suddenly decided the old stump of a long-dead tulip poplar is his new favorite restaurant. Pileated woodpeckers are the smaller cousin of the birding world’s latest star—the ivory-billed woodpecker.

In some ways, the birds are similar. Their body shapes are virtually identical, with the only obvious differences being that the ivory-billed is larger, has more white on its wings and possesses its namesake ivory-colored bill. Both look like Woody Woodpecker. Both have raucous calls, and even the smaller pileated woodpecker is a large crow-sized bird that rockets through the eastern forests with amazing speed. The pileated is also a shy bird but obviously not as reclusive at its larger cousin.

Unlike smaller woodpeckers, such as the downy or hairy woodpeckers who are often seen on small dead tree branches, pileateds work the bottom of a tree. If you see bored woodpecker holes near the base of a dead tree in a southern or mid-Atlantic state eastern forest, you’ve found a pileated’s work.

So typically, pileateds are found in unmanaged forests away from houses. A dead tree, rotted at the base, makes homeowners nervous when that tree is near their house. And in forests that are managed or cleared of larger timber, those kinds of dead trees are among the first to go. So with it goes the pileated woodpecker.

Other birds also prefer dead trees—bluebirds are one. Bluebirds like to nest and roost in the hollows of dead trees. I have bluebirds all around me even though there are no nest boxes, as the birds have so far been able to find natural nesting and roosting areas.

I think it’s strange that people profess love for the very birds they are often so instrumental in destroying. Yet, we don’t seem to make the mental connection that if we didn’t destroy the habitat, including the dead trees, we would still have those animals to watch and enjoy. Far beyond any reasonable potential fire source or danger to a house, we simply consider dead trees to be an eyesore and remove them for that reason alone.

I think we need a redefinition of what is and is not an eyesore. A forest without pileated woodpeckers would be an eyesore. A meadow without bluebirds would be an eyesore. That dead tree, on the other hand, is suddenly starting to look pretty good to me.