ALONE ON A WINDY RIDGE: Yesterday the soft tap and scrape

Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Yesterday the soft tap and scrape

...and flakes of bark everywhere. For an hour I watched a Black-backed Woodpecker and an American Three-toed Woodpecker forage in a stand of recently dead trees. That's what they do. Any bird guide will tell you this.

I can't tell the recently dead from the long dead. At least I couldn't until yesterday. Sometimes it takes a while. Yesterday I had the opportunity to compare the way the two species of woodpeckers operate. Of course there will be differences among individuals and no tree is the same. Still I studied them. The rhythm of their tapping and the force with which they flicked the bark aside. Yesterday I heard the differences.

2 comments:

Unknown said...: Beautiful. Woodpeckers fascinate me.

One of my many as yet unfocussed New Years Resolutions is to spend more time just sitting and observing. I can do this easily when I'm at home. When I'm travelling anywhere outside my home territory, I become impatient to be off to the next little experience. It seems quite silly to make an effort to get somewhere and then rush away. I'm a silly person sometimes.; 2/1/13 3:57 PM
Brenda Schmidt said...: Thank you!

I'm a silly person most of the time! I can relate though. It's very hard to settle in an unfamiliar place. I imagine the urge to keep moving is in our genes.; 2/1/13 4:21 PM

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