Monday December 08, 2014
The sun slowly dims in the whitening sky. Soft taps of a woodpecker. The flashing orange light on the roof of the meter reader’s truck.
View ArticleSaturday December 27, 2014
In the weak sun, a violent sneeze possesses me. It echoes off the hillside, sets a squirrel to scolding. A pileated woodpecker drums.
View ArticleSaturday January 03, 2015
A pause in the sleet. It’s plenty cold enough for snow, but all we get is this glassy grit. A pileated woodpecker whinnies up on the ridge.
View ArticleWednesday February 04, 2015
From down-hollow, a pileated woodpecker comes yelling straight over the house, lands and falls silent, joining its mate to forage for grubs.
View ArticleFriday March 20, 2015
Snowstorm. Two male cardinals meet on a white branch and stare at each other. A third red crest flashes in the woods: pileated woodpecker.
View ArticleWednesday June 10, 2015
Have the flickers fledged? Their den hole gapes, silent. Is absence of evidence evidence of absence? A pileated woodpecker’s wild laughter.
View ArticleSaturday September 05, 2015
Overcast and cool. A catbird scolds something in the lilac. Crickets. A pileated woodpecker whinnies once and begins to tap.
View ArticleWednesday September 16, 2015
Another perfect day. From just inside the woods’ edge, the sledgehammer blows of a pileated woodpecker destroying a city of ants.
View ArticleMonday October 12, 2015
Another cool and cloudless morning. The hollow echoes with the croaks of ravens. A pileated woodpecker taps on the side of my house.
View ArticleThursday October 15, 2015
Pileated woodpeckers fly back and forth cackling, their wings black and white as newsprint amid the cathedral-window colors of the leaves.
View ArticleWednesday November 18, 2015
Cold and gray. Two doves sit motionless in a tall locust. A pileated woodpecker skulks through the woods, silent save for its wingbeats.
View ArticleWednesday November 25, 2015
Crystal clear and quiet, except for the methodical hammer-blows of a pileated woodpecker performing surgery on a tree afflicted with ants.
View ArticleSaturday March 05, 2016
A yellow smear of sun on the white-bread sky. The distant knocks of a pileated woodpecker seeking admittance to frozen galleries of ants.
View ArticleFriday March 18, 2016
At the woods’ edge, the tulip poplar sprouts a scarlet thorn: pileated woodpecker. A gust of wind drops a dried leaf into my lap.
View ArticleWednesday April 27, 2016
Overcast and cold. I am listening to the woodpeckers the way one listens to a marimba, savoring the varied, rich tones of dead wood.
View ArticleTuesday May 10, 2016
Talking drums—two pileated woodpeckers on opposite ridges. Rain taps on the roof. The green wall of leaves at the woods’ edge is filling in.
View ArticleWednesday June 15, 2016
Noise from the quarry—a grinding drone that runs under everything: oriole song, woodpecker drumming, a hummingbird’s Geiger-counter clicks.
View ArticleSunday September 15, 2013
Cold at sunrise. A pileated woodpecker hitches up the trunk of tall locust, pausing to yell when he reaches the sunlit crown.
View ArticleTuesday December 17, 2013
The curious satisfaction of watching snow erase my own footprints. Up in the woods, the woodpeckers too are busy fixing what isn’t broken.
View ArticleSunday February 02, 2014
When I step out, a pileated woodpecker flies cackling from a nearby tree, his crest as bright as a stop light this gray and rainy morning.
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