You Can’t Un-see This!

When we purchased our property almost twenty years ago, I learned about an interesting real estate “condition” regarding rural land in this county. As the Realtor was showing us the house, the barn and the pond, he also gestured to the parcel of land directly across from the home. “And, you would get that acre over there, too!” he proclaimed. Then he explained why we would get an additional acre of land with the fifty acres we were considering buying.

“Back in the day, it was determined that no one should erect buildings directly across from a land owner’s home,” he said. So, the acre across the street from a house became property of that resident.

It’s a pretty cool rule. I’m not sure it was ever an actual law. I like the idea that nobody can build there – even though we have since built a new house on a different area of the property. That extra one acre butts up to a creek, which is dry much of year, but flows heavy in Spring and during heavy Summer rains. Of course, mature trees grow along that creek and there’s a stand of trees that developed along the fence line of our property limits, too. The big, old trees makes for a good place for a woodpecker to live.

Yesterday, I decided to hang out in the front yard of the old house because the day prior I had heard what I thought was an owl in the trees across the street. I was hoping to get an audio recording so I could later identify it.

As I was hanging out waiting for something to happen, I saw movement in the trees across the way. It was a Red-headed woodpecker. I’ve seen him around that area now and again, but I only have a couple inferior photos. I aimed my camera up to what I thought was a dead branch of a large tree. Sure enough, the Red-headed Woodpecker was popping his head in and out of a hold at the very top of a branch that ended in a break that clearly happened a long time ago. I wasn’t close enough to get a great shot, but anything was probably going to be better than the couple of fuzzy images I had.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that something was going on. The bird was popping in and out of the hole with intention. He was either agitated or excited. I actually considered that he might be mating with his partner right there in the entry of their nest cavity. Sure enough, after a few minutes of this constant activity, the other bird did fly out and the bird I had been filming followed. I was so excited that I had captured something special.

When I got back to my office, I plugged in the SD card and called my husband in to see the grand reveal of a Red-headed Woodpecker mating! I’m only posting a small sample of what transpired. The time stamps on my files shows that I filmed from 5:47 – 5:52 PM. In reality, the bird’s head bobbing in and out went on for about four minutes. Then the bird returned and I shot for another minute.

Don’t get impatient. Just scroll and…….Wait For It!

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What!!!!!

Yeah. That just happened. That is a Northern Flicker escaping from the hole. I’m going to assume it’s the woodpecker’s hole and the Flicker was either stealing resources that the woodpecker stashed (which, I have read, is a behavior of Red-headed Woodpeckers) – or Wifie is still inside and Mr. Flicker didn’t think Mr. Woodpecker was going to be home so soon! Yeah, I suppose the Flicker was trying to take over the hole for his/her own breeding season…that would be the boring option.

The Woodpecker returned shortly after flying off after the Flicker. This series I am labeling, “How the heck did that dude get in here? I’m gonna have to change the locks.”

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And, then, he settles for merely waiting at the door with the best weapon that he has – a tool that can drill through living, hard wood. “Nobody’s going to get past me, now!”

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Finally, he took a position “on the roof,” fluffed up his feathers a bit, and kept an eye out for any trouble.

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