A word on woodpeckers.

Our friend Ben and Silence Dogood have just returned from our annual trip to Charlottesville, Virginia and the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains. Every Hallowe’en, we head down to visit our friends Cole and Bruce in their eyrie in Peavine Hollow outside of Charlottesville. We enjoy Cole’s extraordinary garden, Bruce’s luscious cooking, and the breath-catching beauty of the Blue Ridge during peak fall foliage season.

No trip is perfect, and there were a few glitches this time. We didn’t realize that Cole’s computer had crashed just before our arrival, so we hadn’t brought a laptop and were unable to post during our visit, despite the many things we saw and wanted to say while we were there. We’d been looking forward to visiting Montpelier, the home of James and Dolley Madison, which we hadn’t seen since it was in the middle of structural renovations, but discovered that, while the renovations had been completed, the house was empty, as the furnishings had not yet been put back. We decided to wait ’til next year to see it in its restored state. And we wanted to stop in at Plow & Hearth, one of our favorite stores, to try to find a rocking-chair cushion for OFB’s new rocker, but ended up at their distribution center rather than their store, with (of course) no clue as to where the store might be. Heartaches, nothin’ but heartaches, as our friend Edith Eddleman says.

But in our travel experience, for every aggravation, there’s an unexpected delight. You’re forced to take a detour; you stumble on a delightful little restaurant. The antiques store you’ve visited for years is closed, but there’s a marvelous crafts center just minutes away. In this case, the unexpected bonuses were hearing foxes bark and seeing pileated woodpeckers.

Silence and our friend Ben both adore woodpeckers. We delight in the appearance of the red-bellied, downy, and hairy woodpeckers (and, of course, the nuthatches) at our feeders each year. We glory in the occasional visit of a flicker, and pray that more of them will make themselves at home at our little rural cottage, Hawk’s Haven. We’ve seen exactly one red-headed woodpecker in the years we’ve lived here, and live in hope that more will show up soon. But one thing we’ve never seen here is a pileated woodpecker.

Pileated woodpeckers are the monarchs of the woodpecker clan, dwarfing all others at 16 1/2 inches long, with their triangular red crests making them instantly distinguishable from all other birds in their size range. (Say PIE-lee-ate-ed, please.) Their unappealing name comes out of ancient history: A pileus was a brimless cap worn in ancient Rome, and the crest of the pileated woodpecker must have reminded some history-loving ornithologist of a Roman cap. Too bad! These majestic birds deserved a better name (at least “great crested woodpecker”).

The largest recorded woodpecker is, of course, the legendary ivorybill, topping the charts at 19 1/2 inches. If you’re a birder or keep up with the news, you’ll be aware of the search for this bird, long thought to be extinct, along the Arkansas/Louisiana border. Ornithologists at Cornell University think they’ve found live specimens of the iconic woodpecker, tracing it by call, but confirmation remains elusive. It reminds our friend Ben of the hunt for the “abominable snowmen,” the Yeti of the North, or of aliens out at Roswell. Maybe they are out there. But if so, couldn’t we just leave them alone?!

Pileated woodpeckers are exciting enough for us. Our friend Ben grew up with an entire pileated family next door, on a former field that had gone back to woods. I love them so much that I was ecstatic to find a special edition of John James Audubon’s print of the pileated woodpecker in a consignment shop, complete with the perfect rustic wood frame. It now hangs proudly over our sofa, and it cheers me up every time I see it.

Unfortunately, we’ve never seen a pileated woodpecker here at Hawk’s Haven, doubtless because we’re surrounded by fields, with a too-small woods across the road. So you can imagine our friend Ben’s excitement down at Cole and Bruce’s when I saw a great bird sweep into one of their feeders, glide and drop, glide and drop. Silence and I were enjoying a warm morning cup (OFB, coffee, Silence, tea) and soaking up the beauty of the mountains before Cole and Bruce got up. “Silence!!!” I hissed. “Look at that!” “Ohmigod!!!” she shrieked. “It’s a pileated!!!” “SHHH!!!”

OMG. So majestic, so primitive. We saw it or another of its kind flying across an opening in the canopy before we had to head home to Pennsylvania. Two sightings in two days. Now we have pileated envy. Maybe we should put out a big sign, “Pileateds Welcome!!!,” in our front yard. Oh please. Please come.

A couple of years ago, our friends Delilah and Chaz, who always think of the best presents, gave us a suet cake holder with a cylindrical cage surrounding it to keep out squirrels. We have set it out every year when the weather turns cold with those premade suet cakes inside. The first year, we expected bazillion woodpeckers and other suet lovers to turn up. But it didn’t happen. Even pests like squirrels, raccoons, and—God forbid!—bears have failed to show any interest. We wonder if a big old hunk of fresh suet from our local farmers’ market might have more appeal. Maybe we’ll hang some out this year and compare results.    

If pileated woodpeckers visit you, we say, make the most of it. If not, enjoy any of the colorful, amusing woodpeckers that do choose to call your property home in any season. They’re so great, we know you’ll be glad you did.