I arrived home from dropping E and Z off at baseball practice to a quiet house--C was working late and M, the nocturnal teenager, was asleep. I considered following suit, but my conscience does not allow for 6 p.m. naps (it doesn't allow my children to take them, either, and I prodded M awake). I thought about some writing projects I've been wanting to work on, but the task-master on my left wrist told me I still needed to walk 4,500 steps that day, so I pulled on a pair of red rubber boots and headed outside.
As I neared the top of the driveway, I heard an incessant, insistent peep-squawk-scraw sound. I had heard the same sound the previous day and had traced it to a thick aspen tree with leathery fungus growing from every knob where a branch had once been, but I hadn't been able to see the source of the cacophony on or in the tree.
I climbed a bank of gravel at the edge of the driveway and quickly located the tree. From the top of the bank, overlooking a low area where the tree grew, I was eye-level with a spot 12 or 15 feet above the ground, about the height from which the noise emanated, but still I could see no nest or hole or noisy animal. I decided to wait and watch and see if the source of the noise would make itself visible.
I only had to wait a minute or two before a female yellow-bellied sapsucker came and landed on the side of the tree, dipped her bill toward its trunk and flew off again, leaving the noise undiminished, if not slightly louder, A minute or two later she returned and did the same thing again. I made my way along the ridge of the gravel embankment until I faced the side of the tree when she had landed. There, just a foot or two above my eye level, was a hole in the tree about the size of a walnut.
The woodpecker returned to the tree two or three more times while I stood their watching, each time feeding something in through the hole to her noisy babies, but their squawking never let up. I walked on, through the woods, up the driveway, around the field, and back, and, 4,000 steps later, the babies were still at it. I felt for this mother, with her hungry brood and the never-ending task of trying to fill them up. I know how she feels.
So very cool! Enjoy your weekend.
ReplyDeleteThanks! You too!
DeleteHow cool... we had an old tree on the line between us and our Northern neighbors that had a woodpecker nest. Every year, we would get a new family. So loud indeed, but so close to us we could see them from the hole. Such an amazing thing to watch. :-)
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