The Big Pecker

For a couple of months there has been a persistent hammering coming from the woodlot to the west.

I'm not kidding.

This hammering goes on for hours on end.

All day long.

For days on end.

Actually this is the beginning of the fifth year since this noisy neighbor took-up residence.

I already had a pretty good idea of who might be the maestro of the anvil chorus emanating from the woods - but I hadn't had an opportunity to confirm the identity.

So yesterday morning while Girlfriend and I were out for our morning constitutional I thought it might be a good idea to see if we could determine the source of all of this racket.

Check this out.




















A big old half-dead paper birch - almost completely hollowed-out.

If I was the least bit ambitious I'd wait for the perpetrator to finish the job and then cut the tree down and use it as a dugout canoe.

At the base of the tree was a sizable trash midden of wood chips











And while I didn't catch him on the job - this is the bird that is responsible.


A pileated woodpecker - Wisconsin's largest pecker.

The name derives from the the Latin pileatus - "wearing a cap".

This bird is about the size of a crow and announces its territory by drumming on hollow trees, chimneys and utility poles.

It's favorite food is carpenter ants and it will carve oval holes up to several feet long in tree trunks. It feeds it's young regurgitated insects.

Yum!

Photo - Ohio DNR