The bird's life flashed before my eyes as I imagined the worst—that Pete had tortured it almost to the point of death but not quite. Or that it had flown into a window (we've seen that a thousand times) and it was twitching on the ground, peeping out its last peeps.
Instead, when I got to the deck, Ben was pointing out into the woods where there's a fallen tree and a big pile of sawdust. In it, a pileated woodpecker had struck the avian mother lode and was feasting away. As we watched, he flew up and landed on the side of a tree. Then we saw him fly off, and if you think that's no big deal, it's because you've never seen a pileated woodpecker take off from the side of a tree. They do a backward dive with a half twist so they wind up flying belly-down like they're supposed to. I wish I'd gotten it on film (or SD card), but you'll have to be satisfied with these cut-rate photos.
Pileated woodpeckers are quite large birds, adults being 16–18 inches long and they make a sound like a crazy jungle animal laughing. Don't you wish you had some?
Be thankful~
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