Downy woodpecker and little mac
This fuzzy was taken by the GG somewhere near Ontonagon where he was hiking with the Softies. Note that it has an American flag. The Big Mac hangs an American flag on federal holidays. A couple times this year that didn’t happen either because of weather or some other sort of difficulty. Wouldn’t you know the MAGAts on Facebook had to complain. I wonder how many of the complainants would’ve been willing to go out there to help hang the flag. I wonder how many of the complainants are AFRAID to cross the bridge. A lot of people are. Just sayin’.
Maintaining the Big Mac is not a job for armchair quarterbacks. Once a friend of mine had a flat tire on the bridge and quick as a wink the bridge authority folks appeared and changed it. No room for error on that bridge. Getting people safely across without causing backups is the name of the game. Hanging the flag is a luxury.
Rat-a-tat tat. Rat-a-tat tat. Lather, rinse, repeat. This pecking was going on in the back of the Landfill outside the bathroom. Rat-a-tat tat. Rat-a-tat tat. Lather, rinse, repeat. This time it was somewhere in the front of the Landfill. And this time the actual bird got close enough to the window that I could see that it was a downy woodpecker. I mean, I think it was. I actually looked it up on the internet and the downy is a common bird in the Great Lake State and the smallest woodpecker and this bird was small.
We have a metal fireplace chimney and when the beach urchins were small, a woodpecker decided it was a good place to drill. He began his drilling at sun-up (like 6:00 AM) and continued on and off throughout the day. It was LOUD and echoed throughout the house. The beach urchins were TERRIFIED until the GG managed to get a picture of it in action and show them it was just a silly old bird.
And then the grandparents came for a visit. They were sleeping on the foldout couch in the Landfill Back Room, which was right next to the fireplace. I warned them the night before that the woodpecker would wake them up. The grandparents: Oh no, that won’t wake us up. Me: Oh yes the woodpecker WILL WAKE YOU UP! 🤣🤣🤣
September 26th, 2022 at 8:30 pm
They really are loud and such a nuisance. I sometimes have one too who likes the shiny cap on my chimney. That bridge looks scary!
September 27th, 2022 at 10:53 am
The last two days we have had a downy woodpecker banging on our back porch. (maybe it has been there all summer, and I’m only hearing it now that we have the windows and backdoor open.) We’ve had issues with woodpeckers in past years, b/c they go after the carpenter bees that also like our wooden back porch. The bees drill nice, neat half inch holes that look like they were done with a drill. Then the woodpeckers come along and leave great big messy holes. Before seeing the downy, I always assumed it was a larger woodpecker that was making the holes.