Yesterday it was chilly and grey and the air was damp. After digging around in my renegade compost pile to move stuff around (one of my favorite things lately), I heard a red-bellied woodpecker flying up behind me. He flew almost to the side of the house and then made a quick turn to cling to a pine trunk above me. We looked at each other. He flew off a bit, but I could still hear him clucking.
I should mention that I knew a woodpecker made a hole in the side of the house again, but I had never seen what woodpecker.
I took a few steps down the hill behind the compost pile, crouched down, and got still. Red Belly isn’t stupid. He knew where I was. I suppose I backed up and became non-threatening enough that he eventually flew back to the pine tree above me, gave me a look, and then impossibly disappeared into the hole. It looked like he got sucked into a pneumatic tube.
Well, now I know. And I should call my landlord, but after I buy a woodpecker house or something to get the repair person to hang where the hole is now. There’s a slim chance Red Belly would move into that rather than start excavating another hole in the siding immediately as usual. While I do like the idea of him sleeping in the wall next to me while I am in my bed, I do not like the idea of him in there with the insulation. It cannot be good for him. I wish I could control who would fix the hole and when. I have a horror of them sealing the woodpecker up in the wall.
Anyway, after learning for sure that Red Belly is my close neighbor, I walked around in the woods for a little bit.
I am not sure how I missed this most amazing tree for so long, because it is very near the house but off at a weird angle. It is a huge, five-trunked tulip poplar. I must photographic it because it gave me chill bumps when I circled around the side of it and saw how three of the trunks join.
Then a little more walking, slowly, eyes scanning the ground and… what… oh my… THAT is a segment of a branch about the size of my upper arm… with a round opening and a cavity hollowed out… and mycelium wallpaper. Woodpeckers, woodpeckers, woodpeckers…
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A week ago I walked home from campus between 9 and 10pm. I stopped for dinner on the way and walked slowly because there was still ice in places. Downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro were deserted. Icy ghost towns. The temperature was in the low 20s/upper teens. A hoarfrost covered all the plants.
I do not know how or why I have never seen hoarfrost at night, but it may be one of the most beautiful things there is. Twinkling white Christmas lights are such a cheap imitation.
That morning I walked up the hill to downtown to catch the bus. Of course, I saw the bus I meant to catch go by while I was still half an icy block away. But before that… on the way up the hill… all was deserted and silent. Silent except for the thrillingly satisfying and LOUD cracking of the ice crust as I broke it with each step. I could hear the sound moving away from me as the crack traveled. I pretended to be Godzilla for a moment. It is true. I also giggled out loud and then looked around furtively.
Later that night I happened to think, “I haven’t heard any owls around here in quite a while. I wonder what’s up with that.” A few minutes later, I popped out onto the front deck to put some things in the recycling bin. And of course I heard a Great Horned Owl.
As I told my friend, I had a conversation with an owl. She asked, “What did the owl say?” I said, “I don’t know… the conversation was in owl.” I think it was probably saying, “God your accent is horrible,” or “Would you please be quiet, you ridiculous human?” Or maybe just, “Don’t worry. There are still owls here.” Who knows. Owls. They are never what they seem anyway.
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Too late to do anything about it this past weekend, I learned that a pileated woodpecker was photographed in a not-too-distant state park just a few days ago. Also, I learned that bobcats are photographed at night by wildlife cameras in a few other state parks farther away, but not beyond a weekend trip. Of course LYNX RUFUS would also pop up. Can’t let the woodpeckers get all the attention.
And no, I do not think I’m going to go camp at a state park and see a bobcat, but just to be in a place where true wild cats live is what I want. Not since second grade, when I lived just on the line of the Olympic National Forest in Washington, have I spent time in an area with wild cats. Oh, and that area also keeps popping up.
I keep smelling the moist clean mossy wood forest smell of where I used to play. It may be the best smell in the world.
My friend keeps telling me the Rainbow Gathering is in Western Washington next year. I don’t know about that. I got stuck at finding out you have to poop in a trench in a non-secluded area. Yep. I don’t know about that one… I think my inner hippie may be more of a hermit that that.
