Excuse us for the fun alliterative headline, but we couldn’t resist, especially after hearing the enthusiasm Wilton’s Kimber Felton had when she saw this Pileated Woodpecker at Wilton Woods. A self-confessed bird lover, Felton took this picture last week. Below she describes finding the bird.
“I saw him at the entrance to the Wilton Woods off of Branch Brook Rd. right after the last snow fall. It was a crisp winter morning and there was fresh snow so we decided to see if we could snow shoe in the woods or walk. I was pulling the car in and there he was pecking away about 10 feet from the sign with the map.
“My husband is used to me getting excited over birds so he just sat there and let me rhaspodise about Pileated Wood peckers. I have been hearing their calls for a while but haven’t been able to find the source, even though they are about a foot tall, and have a blazing red mohawk and intelligent eyes. I also have been seeing their massive rectangular holes in trees around the forest. So I knew one was around. I have been keeping my eye out for it.
“Seeing him as I pulled in surprised me…even though we were in the car I started whispering all these facts as if we were outside. After gazing at him for about 5 minutes my husband had had enough. We slowly left the car and could hear the rat ta ta of him hitting the tree (which was surprisingly quiet) and see his head disappearing in his deep hole. He let us get to the trail head before he flew off into the woods. We could still hear him call but lost sight of him.
“I now go out of my way to go down Branch Brook Rd.–which is in the opposite direction of everything–just to see if I can see him again. I’ve been lucky twice, usually around two o’clock in the afternoon. He has made a huge hole. It is so neat that the Wilton Woods has a resident Pileated Woodpecker because they stay where they land all year round with their mate. Maybe this spring we’ll find their nest!”
Great picture of a beautiful bird! My grandfather had Pileated Woodpeckers come to his feeder every day for years. He built a simple feeder made for beef suet (fat trimmings) that he got for free from the local butcher. Stew Leonard’s has barrels of the stuff that they used to give away for free. We had a feeder like this up for a couple years. While the Pileated never found it, all the other local woodpeckers loved it, as did our local nocturnal flying squirrels. Here is a link showing the design of the feeder:
http://www.allfreecrafts.com/nature/birds/suet-feeder/