Room with a View

(Pileated Woodpecker)

“Okay. Okay. I know. Pileated Woodpeckers will chip away at their tree cavity openings, creating almost perfect rectangular orifices. I guess this one wasn’t finished yet. Maybe it’s checking out the neighborhood and making sure the location is worth the effort.” I wrote that in 2020 and have since learned more. Actually, the Pileated’s nest holes ARE round. The rectangular shaped holes are made when they are pecking for food. Always more to learn.

These birds are just remarkable. They’re big, like crows. They have amazing flaming red topknots with standout white streaking on their otherwise black necks and bodies. Their calls rattle like laughter through the woods and their drumming against tree trunks carries great distances. Both are sounds so distinct that you won’t forget them once identified.

It’s not much of a stretch to believe that the famed Woody Woodpecker cartoon character was modeled after this pugnacious bird. There was no comedy in the drama I witnessed one afternoon, however. Floating still in a canoe on a small Ozark River, I was quietly watching the water and casting and retrieving my lure along a shadowy submerged tree and hoping for the thrill of a Smallmouth Bass strike. Suddenly, a frantic, raucous disturbance broke out. High above my head in a massive Sycamore I could see a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers appearing to attack their own nest hole. Odd I thought, but quickly realized that braced along a branch below the hole and reaching towards it was a six-foot Pilot Black Snake, wrist thick, making a determined effort to achieve a tasty egg or fledgling snack. Perhaps, he had not experienced determined woodpeckers before. Again and again, the pair attacked, risking their own safety to deter this capable intruder.

I quietly paddled to the other side of the stream to get a better view and was glad I had as the serpent lost its scaled grip on the branch and fell 30 or 40 feet to slap the surface of the river below. With lassitude but gathering up a bit of its dignity, the beautiful Pilot Black righted its sinewy length and swam on downstream. 

Above, mom and dad clung to the bark on either side of their nest hole with a new tale to tell.