Pileated_Ponderings

I was leading a field trip.

The objective was to see birds.

I had a bone to pick with the day. The day had been one of wall-to-wall rain. The weather had been miserable. The day had been a series of downpours interrupted only briefly by hope. The tattoo of raindrops on the roofs of the cars had been our constant companion. If the day had a theme song, it would have been, “Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling.”

A recollection from a mythology class taken during my Pleistocene era caused me to blame Zeus, the god of weather. As the rain refused to go away, the day lost its confident swagger. There was no threat of mutiny, but there were no high-fives either.

We stopped for a restroom break. It was a restroom made for birders. Trees and water surrounded the building. I chose the location because I’m a big believer in the old saying, “If you gotta go, go somewhere nice.”

As folks waited their turns, I scanned the area for anything avian. One of the best things about birds is that they are everywhere. If we make the habit of looking, we will see. Birds may be everywhere, but they don’t hang around hoping to be seen. A bird should be considered a flight risk.

Above the tops of the trees notching the leaden sky, I watched a few starlings wheeling in harmony.

There was a Great Blue Heron, standing still as if frozen to its reflection in the water. My father called them shitepokes and marveled at their skill and patience while hunting.

I watched the heron until it captured a small fish for lunch. It situated the fish in its bill so that it would go down the gullet headfirst. The genius of birds. It’s never a mistake to look at a bird. Then I heard the call. It sounded almost like a flicker, but not quite. It was louder and deeper.

I saw a large bird fly into a nearby tree. A Pileated Woodpecker! The Pileated has a flight that is unusually deliberate for a woodpecker.

Comparing its size to that of the much more common Downy Woodpecker, the Downy weighs about an ounce, while the Pileated weighs in at 10 to 16 ounces, putting it in the heavyweight class of woodpeckers. Its loud “Kuk, kuk, kuk!” call that rises and falls in pitch has earned it the nicknames of “wood hen” and “cock of the woods.”

I quickly found the bird with my naked eyes and then added my binoculars to reinforce the sighting. My binoculars became Gandalf, magically placing the bird in my eyes. Seeing the male bird with its red moustache was like looking at an exquisite painting.

The Pileated uses its large beak to chisel sizable, rectangular holes into sick or dead trees. The bird hits the wood like a feathered jackhammer, making the chips fly. This has earned it yet another nickname, the “carpenter bird.” A woodpecker’s bill is anchored at the skull by a thick bone that acts as a shock absorber while the bill is propelled forward at 15 miles per hour. Its skull contains a liquid membrane that surrounds the brain to protect it from jarring. Men have something similar that protects us when we fall asleep while watching TV.

The Pileated does a lot of drumming on hollow limbs in the spring. It is a distinctive drumming, rather slow and loud at the beginning and then softening as it nears the end. The Pileated searches dead wood for carpenter ants that make up to 60 percent of its diet. The bird uses a sticky, barbed tongue to catch the ants. Scientists have found as many as 2,600 ants in a single bird’s stomach.

The Pileated will eat beetles, grubs, moths, and flies. Its diet also includes acorns, wild grapes, the seeds of sumac, and the fruits of poison ivy, cherry, dogwood, and Virginia creeper. Nesting holes are 15 to 80 feet above the ground, often in a bleached and bonelike, dead tree from which the bark has been stripped away. They prefer a nest cavity facing east or south in order to catch the warmth. American Kestrels, Wood Ducks, and Screech Owls will use old Pileated nest sites. Three to 5 pure white eggs are laid on a bed of chips. Both sexes incubate the eggs for 18 days. When not occupying the nest, the male often will entertain his mate by drumming on a nearby hollow limb. The young are a noisy bunch and are fed regurgitated insects in order to keep them quiet. This works as well as feeding a hotdish to a Lutheran. The nestlings leave the nest at 26-28 days of age

The crow-sized Pileated Woodpecker played that woodpecker peek-a-boo with my eight-powered eyesight. It peered around one side of the tree and then the other.

As a boy, I was told that there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who walk into a room and say, “Here I am.” Then there are those who walk into a room and say, “There you are.” I was told to strive to be a member of the latter group.

Seeing the Pileated, I could almost hear the bird saying, “There you are.”

I have always loved woodpeckers. My mother told her children that they could become whatever they wanted to be. I decided I was going to become a woodpecker. It seemed to be a noble calling. I received all kinds of advice from the older children. One told me that I needed to practice. I whined in response that I was not going to jump off the roof of the house again. It had taken my broken leg forever to heel.

My helpful advisor agreed that I’d never be much of a flyer, but was adamant that I still needed to practice. He told me that woodpeckers hammered on trees and that was what I should learn to do. A kind-hearted lad, he told me that I should start out on a nice, soft tree like the stately bur oak that stood in our farmyard.

I think that’s why I admire woodpeckers so much. When I think of all the headaches and bloody noses they had to go through to become what they are, I feel humbled.

The dictionary tells me that pileated means, “Crested, having a crest on the pileum (top of the head of a bird).” Shakespeare said, “What’s in a name?” Pileated can be pronounced either “pie-lee-ated” or “pill-e-ated”.

According to Walter Lantz's press agent, the idea for Woody the Woodpecker came during the Walter’s honeymoon with his wife, Gracie, in the area of Sherwood Lake in California. A noisy Pileated Woodpecker awakened the couple by hammering on the roof of the cabin at daybreak, and when a heavy rain started, they learned that the bird had pecked holes in the cabin's roof. Gracie suggested that her husband draw a cartoon about the bird, and thus Woody the Woodpecker was born. The story may be one created by the press agent, but it’s an interesting one nevertheless.

Everyone in our group got good looks at the most accommodating woodpecker.

To see the exquisite beauty of a bird such as the Pileated Woodpecker is reason enough to own binoculars. On a dismal day, the Pileated Woodpecker brought sunshine to a flock of birders.

My mother would often ask, “Who knows what form an angel takes when it comes to call?” On this particular day, the form was that of a Pileated Woodpecker.

The Pileated Woodpecker was a gift; as was the company of people who appreciated its presence.

All of nature is holy. The cathedrals are not only the preserved habitats, but also the birds themselves. There are rare birds, but seeing any bird makes for a rare moment. Birds need special places. If we make sure they have these special places, we, in turn, will have our own special places.

Even when we stop to use a restroom.

©Al Batt