This last week of my vacation, I'm relaxing up at our little house in the Adirondacks. The place has no lawn and is surrounded by woods, so just by looking out the windows we're sometimes treated to some up-close-and-personal wildlife. I've already seen deer outside the house several times, this trip.This afternoon I was attracted by some movement outside our living-room window. I was rewarded by the sight of two very large woodpeckers, who had just zoomed in and attached themselves to a couple of trees.
These birds were LARGE - bigger than I ever imagined a woodpecker would be (although I have to say, I've never seen one this close). One flew off pretty quickly, but the other hung around for a while, moving from tree trunk to tree trunk, looking for bugs no doubt.
I tried to get a picture, but by the time I got the camera into position, it had gone. I called Claire right away (she's the birdwatcher in our family). Based on my description - it looks like Woody Woodpecker, I told her - she said it was probably a Pileated Woodpecker. I checked it out on Wikipedia, here at the public library (where I now am), and found out she nailed the identification (kudos, Claire). Wikipedia says this bird was the model for ol' Woody.Pretty cool, to see a couple birds like that right outside the window.
The Creator has all kinds of free gifts to offer us, if only we have eyes to see.
