Five years ago, Pileated Woodpeckers friended me.
Okay… strictly speaking, it’s been a one-way friendship: Me admiring some magnificent birds.
It began in April 2015. I was home every day, all day, recovering from surgery. I felt confined, not unlike today’s stay-put virus isolation. My sanity-saver was our expanse of sliding glass doors. They overlook a steep, wooded bluff that brings some trees’ crowns near eye-level, just yards away.
When I first noticed two woodpeckers pounding persistently, I assumed they were foraging. The tree they were pecking wore fungus on its trunk. There had to be insects under the bark.
A week later, I realized my error.
