Thump, Thump, Thump, Thump
We had emerged from the thick pine and fir forest along “The Ridgeline Trail” into a clearing fringed on two sides with aspens. “Flicker, I think,” I said to Jean, responding to a single birdcall. “Yeah, maybe.” A deep, dull “thump, thump thump, thump” followed the flicker-like exclamation – the only sounds breaking the early AM quietness.
No question, a woodpecker. Was this the Flicker with a hoarse voice on this chilly morn? Jean was noting the thumping cadence (more accurately the lack of). Being late summer it was not the territorial drumming sequence of a male woodpecker in the spring, nor was it the intermittent tap tap tap of a hammerhead foraging up the tree bark for insects.
“I think it may be a Pileated.” “You’re right, Jean, I’ve got it.” Behind two firs, where we had just entered the small meadow, was an old, rotting, forty-foot high broken-off remains of a Ponderosa Pine. In full view, midway up the snag, a female Pileated Woodpecker was excavating a pocket of Carpenter Ants. This was our bird.
Here was North America’s largest woodpecker (surely the Ivory-bills are dead and long gone) working on its preferred food in its favorite habitat. These crow size (sixteen plus inches) woodpeckers chisel into dead or dying trees, cleaning out a rectangular cavity exposing insect colonies. In contrast, when constructing a nest cavity, the entry is round.
With their size, bright red crest, white wing patch, underside white wing coverts, dark body and bill size these birds are unmistakable. Also, this is the other woodpecker which does not fly like a woodpecker. The Pileated and the Lewis flight pattern is non-undulating. The wek call is not unlike that of a Northern Flicker, thus my initial error.
With aching arms we toughed it out through the glass for more than fifteen minutes as she repeatedly pounded away, pausing only to gulp down her victims. Finishing a hearty breakfast, she worked her way up the snag, found nothing, stood atop the jagged stump for a moment, and then flew off showing all her field marks.
Two days later, along the “Meadow Marsh Trail”, we again heard thump thump thumping. Finally we spotted it. A male Pileated working at ground level on a fallen fir. Every so often he popped his head up to check us out. When he peeked we could see the male only crimson malar strip which runs from the base of the bill below its white cheek.
Ponderosa State Park, named for its 150 to 200 foot tall, 250 to 300 year old Ponderosa Pines, sits on a peninsula that almost bisects Payette Lake near McCall, Idaho, was the venue for these sightings. This park has a variety of topography and habitats from arid sagebrush flats, steep basaltic cliffs, dense conifer forests, aspen groves, meadows, marshes, and beaches, where the Ospreys nest and the Red-breasted Nuthatch is ubiquitous.
Although signs of Pileated Woodpeckers have been noted in the Shirley Meadows area of Kern County, the nearest for-sure birds are in the Giant Redwoods area of Tulare County.
Good birding – gone birding.
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