Bright sun, cold shadows:
it is hard to tell the truth
about anything.

-John Staley, 100 Poems of Spring

“Aesthetically, their value is incalculable. The sound of a drumming woodpecker is a sign of the approach of spring.”

WILLIAM A. LENHAUSEN, “WOODPECKERS,” ADF&G, 2008.

Spring isn’t here yet. At all. But it is March, and the days are getting longer. And I guess I have to choose whether or not to let bird people, or birds themselves, serve as my meager inspiration for spring. Nah. Not yet, at least. I’m still having a good run with winter.

On this morning’s walk, Cedar and I listened to a distant woodpecker dude, apparently starting to scope out his territory for a hot(ish) spring date. Why not? Get it going before any of us acknowledge it’s spring, I guess?

These birds, with necks as strong as football players’, are acting like frat boys of the forest, whether they’ve been here all winter (ouch) or just arrived from warmer climes. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game…

“The male sets up a territory by ‘drumming.’ This loud repetitive noise is made by hammering the bill against a resonating surface such as the trunk of a dead tree. Woodpeckers use various displays, including head-weaving and body-bobbing, during courtship and as signs of aggression toward intruders.”

William A. Lenhausen, “Woodpeckers,” ADF&G, 2008.
Male woodpecker drumming (and Cedar snorting) this morning. Turn volume up.

It’s cold, we’re skiing still, and I’m not going to join the head-bobbing spring drum circle yet. I will note, though, that the woodpecker, like the struggling middle-aged writer, takes advantage of heart rot. Hollowed out trees not only make better drums (true story, no matter what beautiful things John Straley writes), but they also make better habitats for insect prey. The point of that non-story, I guess, is that we oughta leave our old growth forests in tact, allow trees and bad blog writers to age, so they can see themselves in one another, and so those drumming peckers can couple up. Male woodpeckers actually share all the domestic duties, and they can do in tens of thousands of potentially pesky insects, so laissez les bons temps (and drums) roller, I guess. 

Meanwhile, some bons temps roll for Cedar and human…skiing (then snoring), walking, reading (ahem), and generally wagging to some fine March weather. 

Footage of the bridge crash available to paid subscribers.