mikeham

We hit a two hour trail that's unmanaged; a sign warns, 'at own risk'. At least, it doesn't ask us to abandon all hope.

After some time, we trudge through a swampy boardwalk. As we end it, a shadow like a missile shoots across our trail.

Steven exclaims, "Hey, that was a Pileated Woodpecker!"

We linger and clamour to view this Northern exotic bird, although the bird books explain that they are common. But, I say exotic because of its huge smoldering black vestments crossed by a line of brilliant red across its white face and head.

We must see it. I hear it in the bush ahead of us. I trudge into pine and maple, ground cover, dead trees, and whatever else that scratches, or prohibits our bodies from walking towards the frantic voice. I hear him pecking a dead tree just ahead of me. I glimpse black feathers darting to the left, and in my ears that frantic booming voice. We move back to the path; Steven following its darting body back towards the boardwalk. I follow the woodpecker's outcry.

And there he is vertically on alert against a dead marsh tree. As we manage our binoculars, his outcry becomes more abrasive, louder, as if protesting its celebrity. Through binoculars we peer at his neat magnificence of feathered black and white and red natural design. Like any fan, we are honoured and awed by the presence of such beauty and character.

I think Nature, too, must have glowed brightly when it discovered the first Pileated Woodpecker emerge radiantly out of its belly.