Mad Woodpecker

[kevin_standlee]

Yesterday over lunch, I heard a metallic clanging sound from outside the trailer. "What's that?" I asked.

Lisa said, "Oh, it's just that crazy woodpecker again."

I grabbed my camera and looked out the front door of the trailer.

Across the street in front of the church there is a street sign. On that street sign was perched a woodpecker.

This appears to be a red-breasted sapsucker, which is apparently fairly common in this area, but I've never seen one before.

The clanging sound was this silly bird pecking away at the metal sign, rather than the wooden post, or perhaps more productively, an actual tree rather than a treated sign post.

Lisa says that woodpecker has been banging away on that sign for days now. This morning, while I was getting ready to go to work, I heard it again. I watched him continue his fruitless attempt to drill holes in a metal sign before heading off to my "office" at Lisa's father's house.

More photos in this series over on Flickr.

Why the woodpecker has been banging its head on a metal sign, we cannot figure out.

Comments

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

They also attract girls (and scare away other boys) by doing that hammer noise thing, and he's definitely a boy.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Bird's a metalhead.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

I have great memories of visiting my grandfather down in Ojai; the local woodpeckers absolutely loved the aluminum streetlight poles. That was many years ago. I have no idea if their descendants are still pecking at metal.