9-12-2018

Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) She announces her arrival with her brash dinosaur cackle, larger than life, ‘The Queen is in the house, babies’, strutting and gesticulating, hopping vertically up or down the trunks, pushing off her stiff tail feathers, with formidable core strength. There’s a grace and gravitas in the way she carries her latent jackhammer power. Pileateds are apparently the largest surviving woodpeckers in North America, and seem to know it.