"It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning." -- Vincent van Gogh
Yesterday I woke up to the sound of a woodpecker, which (if I'm being honest) wasn't very pleasant. But it's hard to resist such a rare photo opportunity, so off I went to the chilly back yard (25 degrees in April!), right to the edge of the woods, to study this noisy but industrious fellow up-close.
It's both easy and not easy to get a good picture of a woodpecker. It's not easy because they don't stay still for you--they have their own agenda, and that agenda is knocking their beaks into a tree trunk repeatedly and with great gusto, scoping out the insects that are hiding inside. But it's easy if you can get into their rhythm. Peck-peck-peck-peck-peck...(pause)...peck-peck-peck-peck-peck (pause). It was at the pauses that I clicked the shutter button.
"How nice of him to stop and pose for you," said a friend on Facebook when she saw the photo above. I assured her that he didn't stop; it was just a matter of working with his rhythm.
I also learned the distance that was "too close for comfort" for this particular bird. I'd take a few snapshots, then inch closer...more shots, more steps silently forward (well, as silent as the still-crunchy fallen leaves would allow). When I got within about 10 feet, the woodpecker skirted around to the other side of the tree trunk, "hiding." If I edged closer still, off it flew to a nearby tree, where it would complain loudly to me for getting too close.
So I'd back up a few steps, and he'd fly back again. Peck-peck-peck-peck-peck...(click)...
We spent nearly an hour together, off and on. My fingers would go numb (even through my gloves) and I'd go inside to thaw out and change lenses. During one of these thawing breaks, I learned from one of our bird guidebooks that I was photographing a Pileated Woodpecker. It was a male because it had that red "mustache" at its bill. The guidebook told me it was a relatively shy bird, but I'm not sure I agreed. After all, we'd come to an understanding: Keep my distance and we could "hang out" together. I gave up first, though. It was just so very cold, I had already taken many pictures, and he was doing the same thing over and over, in his own zone.
Much later in the day, after the kids got home from school, the same woodpecker was back at the same tree, pecking another large oval hole. My eight-year-old daughter ventured out to the edge of the woods with her own camera, watching and learning the rhythm of the bird.
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