Woodpeckers, Not Cardinals

Quote of the day:
“Cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists and consumed...by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.”
--Roland Barthes

This morning we woke up to a woodpecker pecking on the roof. It turns out that we are living among a community of acorn woodpeckers.

They are fairly large black-and-white birds with bright red skullcaps, like the Catholic church hierarchy. Our Sibley guide says acorn woodpeckers are common in oak forests. I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing here, because this is a pine forest. But who am I to pick such nits?

There are quite a few of them and they have clearly have an elaborate social structure. Certain birds belong on each tree, and a few are relegated to the nearby phone poll. They must have missed the housing boom.

They visit the gutters of our house for water from the morning dew. They warn each other when a hawk approaches. They gang up on invading jays.

In addition to finding tasty morsels when they peck, they also hide acorns in holes they find and enlarge. And they communicate with a wide vocabulary of squawks, chirrs, peeps and screams.

Clearly they were here first, and we can learn from them.