Bird Watchers Digest - July/August 2011

saw that little assemblage of birds gathered around the rock-picking redbelly when I hear a knocking sound. It’s loud and hollow, and it has the cadence of a person knocking insistently at a door, wanting to get the attention of someone within. It’s not a drumroll by any means—it’s slow and a bit labored.

Oh, the exquisite torture of
wanting to run for camera and bin-
oculars, yet knowing I might miss
something if I do! I stand and stare
at the bird, and it stares back at me.
I desperately want to see it hit the
hollow dead limb with the rock, to
And it’s very loud.

The first thing I notice about the sound is that the blows do not vary in volume or speed, or end in the sound of splintering wood, as do those of an excavating pileated woodpecker. Perhaps you’ve heard a foraging pileated.

again; to confirm the suspicion that is growing in my mind that this bird might be using a tool. A tool? No! A musical instrument!

Finally, I can’t stand it any longer.

The artist’s sketch from

17½ years ago.

Chop. Chop-chop.

Chop-chop-chop-chop. Pause.

Chop-chop (splinter). Chop-chop-chop (splinter).

This was TOCK TOCK TOCK TOCK TOCK TOCK TOCK!

Once again, I freeze. And cuss
quietly under my breath, because
I can’t wear my binoculars when
I have to do some-
thing. I tiptoe, then
race the few dozen
yards to the house,
grab my telephoto
lens and binoculars,
and race back, being
careful to slow
down and act casual when I come
back into the woodpecker’s view. I
raise the binoculars. It’s a redbelly,
all right—a female! And she is no
longer holding the rock. Had it all
been a figment of my imagination?

I’m running. I strain my naked eyes toward the sound and pick up a movement. There it is! At the top of a dead pine snag, riddled with woodpecker holes, perches a red-bellied woodpecker. And it has something large and squarish in its beak. It looks like a rock.

The sound I’d heard was exactly what I’d expect from a rock hitting dead wood, and it was unlike any sound I’d ever heard a woodpecker make. Rats, rats, rats. Where is the rock? I take a few photos of her sitting there in the light rain. She stretches both wings, flares her red nape feathers, calls Kwirrk!