More Wildlife: The Pileated Woodpecker

The creek near our house is like a National Audobon Wildlife Refuge. We call the creek the "trickle" because it isn't a raging body of water, just a slow, not completely still, meandering stream of sorts.

One day I think I saw five different birds all bathing in the creek at one time: yellow finches, robins, blue jays, cardinals and others. The blue jays get territorial. The squirrels are everywhere, chasing each other. I've seen a silvery-gray heron in our creek. Sleek and beautiful. When I went to get a picture of it, it saw me out of the corner of it's eye and flew away. The wing span on the heron (or was it an egret?) was probably six feet, at least. There are minnows in our creek. Canadian geese hang-out in our neighbor's yard. I've even heard a story that there was an alligator found in the pond downstream from us, that the alligator was found only after a few geese disappeared. Hmmm...

We have a hawk that lives in the trees nearby. One day he decided to perch on our deck for a minute. What a pretty and HUGE bird. Rust in color. There is a cardinal nest nearby. There are many blue jays in our neighborhood, too. Aggressive birds, those blue jays.

Yesterday I went to work in the basement and noticed a little stirring in our garage. I thought it might've been the house contracting with the weather getting cooler. When I went to work on my computer, I noticed a baby bird had made its way into the finished part of our basement and was perched on a filing cabinet. I opened up all of the doors and the garage door, and went upstairs. When I came back down, the bird was gone. This is the third bird that has been in our house. The other two were in our great room (both flew in from the front door), but this one stayed in the basement. (We have funny stories about the birds that flew into the great room...)

One Saturday morning a few years ago, I got up early while Doug was sleeping. I heard a thud followed by a splash in our back yard. When I went out onto our deck, I saw that a very large turtle had tumbled down the hill into our creek. I ran over to the concrete silt "filter" and stood on it. The turtle, seeing me, ducked under the spill rock and hid from me. When I went to get Doug out of bed, the turtle was gone.

We've got big fat frogs in our creek, occasionally, too. One smaller frog made its way into our basement and hung out for a few days, unbeknownst to us. (He snuck in when the door was cracked open, we think). When we found him, we put him back out in the yard. There is a small blue-tailed lizard that frequents the crack near our garage door. I saw a cotton-mouth snake crawling through our neighbor's ivy (across the street). Doug didn't see it, but I heard it and turned quickly enough to see it disappear into more ivy. Doug has picked up two dead snakes in our yard this year, while mowing the lawn. He said one of the carcasses was at least an inch in diameter. That being said, I don't think our yard lends itself to a little one like Ava playing around by herself...Especially considering the nearby creek (and the fact that it is down a hill).

Working from home lends itself to birdwatching. Today I saw another cool thing. I saw a WILDLY red-headed woodpecker on a tree. By the time I got the camera, it was gone. I've seen woodpeckers before, but none like this one. I had to look the bird up on-line to see what kind of woodpecker it was, specifically. I attached a picture, but it just doesn't do it justice. On-line, I learned that "Woody Woodpecker" (the cartoon) was modeled after a pileated woodpecker. I've heard an annoying bird "laugh" for a few years now. I now realize this "laugh" is the laugh of the pileated woodpecker that resides in the trees above our house... The woodpecker I saw today had longer hair on top, and was BRIGHT, BRIGHT red. A sight to see.

http://echotourism.com/birding/pileated.htm

We enjoy the variety of God's creatures that stop by our house for a visit! It's always interesting . One thing the creek has taught me is that "life goes on". I know this all might sound a bit cheesy... The water doesn't stay in one spot, it is constantly moving and pushing on downstream. We must all evolve. Whether fast or slow, it gets where it needs to go. It knows where it needs to go. It takes another path if faced with obstacles (rocks). It IS life. (What is the fact, that humans are 80% water?) It brings interesting characters (red-headed, hard-shelled or blue-tailed) our way. They come in an out out of our lives (or in our case, our house :-)). It's pretty cool to have physical and figurative "life" running just alongside our house. It is literally as close to the house as it could be, without us ever needing to worry about a flood. We enjoy our little trickle.

As Woody himself put it best, "That's all folks."

With love,
Shelly