So I’ve had my bank of feeders up for several years now, and there are several species that are constant visitors, and I’m happy for most of them. But it’s neat when I get something I didn’t expect. I’d always hoped for a pileated woodpecker. We got other kinds of woodpeckers, but though my town has plenty of woods my home isn’t in amongst them, so I figured it wouldn’t happen.
I shared this with my wife, showed her the picture in the book. She thought my interest might be misplaced.
WIFE: Dear, what we’re dealing with here is a perfect engine, a pecking machine. It’s a miracle of evolution, really. All this machine does is fly, and peck, and make little birds, and that’s all! Now why don't you take a long, close look at this book. Those proportions are correct.
And then, one day…
My stepson was the one that spotted her.
STEPSON: You’re gonna need a bigger feeder.
ME:
(peering out the doorway) Shut off the kitchen light!
WIFE: That’s a twenty-incher!
ME:
(squinting) Twenty-five. All fifteen ounces of ‘er.
(
Jaws is one the great American films of the last fifty years!)
No birds were shot (well, not with a gun) in the making of this parody. But it is true that I had hoped to attract a pileated woodpecker, and that I expected never to do so…until the day one showed up in the spring of 2019. This photo was in the fall of that year.
Taken with my Canon EOS T2i.