At War With Woodpeckers

WOODPECKER'S THUNDER AND WAR GIVES WAY TO HEAVENLY SILENCE

Flustered homeowner discovers her adversaries in a 'family way' text by Carrie M. Miner REMEMBER HAVING A CHILDHOOD AFFECTION for the comic antics of Woody Woodpecker. His unique rat-a-tat-tat laugh, screwball thinking and mischievous playfulness tickled my funny bone. But then I grew up and shied away from the colorful cartoon characters of my youth. That is, until the living incarnation of Woody Woodpecker appeared in the back yard of my first home. When I moved in, I took precautions to prevent encounters with indigenous Southwestern pests, including scorpions, black widow spiders and rattlesnakes. How could I have known to prepare for an aerial raid? Early one spring morning, I awoke to loud hammering, so I pulled the pillow over my head in a vain attempt to drown out the sound. Frustrated, I finally put on a robe and ventured outside to discover what was making such a racket. To my surprise, the hammering abruptly stopped and a bird flew away from the house in a streak of black and white. It perched on a nearby palm tree and watched as I went to the side of the house to inspect its drilling work. But as soon as I went back inside, the woodpecker returned to continue its handicraft. Steadily, the hole grew to about 4 inches in diameter until the woodpecker moved on and started another one, alternately flitting back and forth to drill at both holes.

[OPPOSITE PAGE] The mountaindwelling red-naped sapsucker provides nutrients to its young and other forest animals by drilling food "wells" into tree trunks. TOM VEZO [LEFT] The Gila woodpecker, which grows to 8 to 10 inches long, nests in cavities in cacti. PAUL AND JOYCE BERQUIST

Woodpeckers, flickers and sapsuckers are all members of the Picidae family, and in addition to their persistent drumming, they can be identified by their sharp, pointed beaks, short legs and stiff tail feathers. Twenty-two species of woodpeckers drill and hammer in the United States. Among the dozen Arizona species, the acorn woodpecker, Gila woodpecker, ladder-backed woodpecker and red-shafted flicker are the most common. The red-naped sapsucker and the three-toed woodpecker, because of their threatened habitats, rate special attention as "watchlisted" species by the Arizona Partners in Flight Bird Conservation Plan, a coalition of government agencies and conservation groups dedicated to protecting declining bird species.

Most woodpeckers feed primarily on insects, but they supplement their diet with nuts, berries, fruits, invertebrates and seeds. This adaptable bird utilizes its sharpclawed toes, two forwardand two backward-facing, to cling to the sides of trees, utility poles and wood siding. For added balance, it uses its stiff tail feathers as a brace. Bristly feathers around the nostrils filter out wood dust during their chiseling, strong neck muscles provide added force during drilling, and spongy tissue between the beak and skull absorbs the shock.

In their search for insects, woodpeckers will often tap on the surface and then listen for any morsels moving around within the tree. However, they don't always use their skill of pounding away at 100 strokes a minute in the pursuit of food, as I had discovered. In the spring, they often peck to designate their territory and attract potential mates. Flocks of woodpeckers reportedly have decimated orange and pecan groves as well as man-made wooden structures. But it's not always wood that gets their attention, especially when they're out to make a racket. Woodpeckers have been known to drum on stucco, trash-can lids, evaporative coolers and other resonant objects.

Like other frustrated homeowners who worry about damage by a determined pecker, I decided to take further action. With a borrowed ladder, I gingerly climbed up the side of the house to the eaves, hoping to divert the woodpecker by covering up its holes with the tops of family-size soup cans. As the ornery bird watched from its stakeout on the palm tree, I reached overhead and hammered the tin circles over the openings, all the while trying to conquer my fear ofheights. I finished with a quick paint job and put everything away, certain that the woodpecker would go peck its holes somewhere else.

No such luck. The next morning, I woke to the continual rat-a-tat-tat of my arch-nemesis. This time the bird focused its attention on the evaporative cooler. I ran outside in my nightshirt, wielding a golf club and screaming at the top of my lungs. No doubt about it. I needed professional help.

I called the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson and explained my problem. The operator suggested I try a plastic owl as a scare tactic, so I went shopping. When I returned, the pecker monster was having a heyday on the other side of the house. Once again, I pulled out the ladder and wondered how I'd come to be crawling on the roof. After a small struggle, I managed to secure my plastic predator near the cooler.

Now we'll see who has the last laugh, I thought.

The next morning, I woke to a quiet dawn and sighed in relief. My mistake. Later that day, the unrelenting percussionist was back at it announcing to the world that it had no intention of being scared away from its territory. Wondering if the owl had been dislodged, I went up again and discovered that the mighty owl had suffered serious pecking damage to its head.

I did my homework, resolute about defeating my enemy. I discovered that my adversary was a Gila woodpecker, one of the noisiest woodpeckers found in southern Arizona.

Gila woodpeckers, especially notorious for their drumming and damage, usually inhabit the saguaro stands of the Sono-ran Desert. Even though most woodpeckers survive almost entirely on insects, desert-dwelling woodpeckers have to be generalists. So the Gila woodpecker eats cactus fruit, mistletoe berries and many other items, including the sugar water from hummingbird feeders, which they and flickers raid by hanging upside down and using their long, bristly tongues to steal the sweet stuff.

Even though they occasionally pester homeowners, Gila woodpeckers play a crucial ecological role in their desert habitat. They drill out cavities in thelofty saguaros for nesting. However, they only occupy a nest site for a season or two and then move on, abandoning the hole to a succession of other birds, including elf owls, kestrels, flycatchers, and purple martins, all of which depend on those abandoned saguaro condos.

The woodpecker's eager drumming has been related to thunder and war in many cultures worldwide. The family name Pici-dae comes from the Greek myth of the woodland god Picus, who refused advances from the sorceress Circe. For his folly, she turned him into the world's first woodpecker.

The Pueblo Indians tell of the flicker's close touch with fire, which turned its tail red. And it was Woodpecker Boy who opened the hole in the sky so that the Zuni people could emerge into the current world. The Hopi Tribe uses woodpecker feathers to represent the dawning of the ceremonial year, and the Navajo utilize their plumage in ceremonial masks to symbolize the sun and storms.

Because the woodpecker's tapping reminds us of thunder, we often associate the birds with storms, but they also are considered a bird of war. Most woodpeckers sport black and white feathers with a touch of red on the head, tail or feathers, but the favored by the gods, I was committed to win this war.

I hunkered down and began to fortify my house against attack. I rubbed linseed oil in the wood, covered the cooler with my mattress pad, hung chicken wire from the rafters and tied orange windsocks and strings of aluminum from the eaves. Nothing worked.

By this time, my woodpecker delighted in drawing me from one side of the house to the other. Only now my attempts were limited to half-hearted thumping on the windows or screaming from the back door. Because my feathered foe always retreated to the same palm tree in the neighbor's yard, I began to plot a midnight excursion with a chainsaw.

And then one day, when I'd given up hope, I awoke to silence. Curious, I went outside and began to search for my opponent. The woodpecker was neither perched on my house nor hanging out at his palm hideout. As I circled around to the front, I saw it fly into a fresh hole cut in a saguaro across the street. I walked over to take a closer look and was surprised to see not one woodpecker, but two. It appeared my opponent had shifted his pursuits.

In my tactical sessions, I learned that after woodpeckers pair up for mating, they take turns excavating a nest. The female lays between three to six white, unmarked eggs at the bottom of the hole. Both birds take turns incubating them, but the more aggressive male usually guards the eggs at night, when most predators are on the prowl. After 12 to 14 days, the eggs hatch, and the young will spend the next three to four weeks nesting before heading out on their own. In Arizona's warm climate, the Gila woodpecker and some others nest as early as February and will raise two to three broods a year.

tured by a new generation of Woody Woodpecker cartoons. And suddenly, the horrible realization struck me that my own Woody would be back next season. Only this time, I knew he wouldn't be all alone.

NATIVE AMERICAN SILVERSMITHING IMAGINATION

Techniques passed down from generations of Native American silversmiths are used to craft contemporary jewelry designs as well as traditional pieces, like this Navajo bracelet in sterling silver and turquoise. In recent decades, the use of new gemstones and multistone inlays has led to high-quality Indian jewelry that is innovative and much in demand.