A Woodpecker’s Revenge

What might we take from the shattered glass?

Pileated Woodpecker / © John Serrao / CC BY-NC via iNaturalist

IN THIS ERA of lies and hyperbole, here is a bird truly worthy of its superlatives: robust, dazzling, theatrical. People who see it fly on broad wings or hear it call out for a mate often speak the word “primeval.” But nowhere in a Pileated Woodpecker’s bio does there appear the word “vandal.”

Except for one Pileated Woodpecker breaking glass and making news here in the U.S. Amid its notoriety and bravado, this woodpecker actually has me thinking of something else all too human and senseless: misguided aggression and destruction. So in the example of this bird’s misdemeanors, perhaps we can discover a few things about ourselves.

For weeks now the pileated in question, a male, has been smashing side-view mirrors on cars and trucks in a neighborhood of Rockport, Massachusetts — more than two-dozen acts of vandalism so far (including leaving a big crack in at least one car window). But why?

Well, it’s breeding season here in the north, when birds establish and defend territories on which to attract mates and raise young. Males in competition for a given patch of turf often elect to make music, not war: they simply sing at each other until one retreats. (If only humans could resolve disputes this way.) Sometimes the conflict rises to squabbling: posturing and wing fluttering (like male humans facing off and flexing their muscles). Although it usually ends there, the confrontation can escalate further to physical contact: smashing into or pecking at one another.

Enter the mirror. A bird catching a glimpse of his reflection perceives not himself but rather an intruder onto his prospective territory. It happens more often with American Robins, Northern Cardinals, and other songbirds living near our homes and vehicles. It’s unusual among woodpeckers (which, more so than singing at one another, tend to sort out their boundaries by way of competing drumrolls against tree trunks and limbs).

When they encounter their own reflections, robins and cardinals and most other birds lack the force of bill to break glass. Not so a Pileated Woodpecker, whose head, neck, and bill amount to the avian equivalent of a hammer and chisel. Mirrors become casualties.

For the most part, the folks of the Squam Hill section of Rockport have taken the damage to their vehicles in stride. Janelle Favaloro says that the pileated has been bringing neighbors together in share experience. “It’s hard to be mad at him,” she told The New York Times.

Another Lesson from Broken Glass

Pileated Woodpecker © Josh Lincoln / Black Woodpecker © Сергей Неклюдов / CC BY via iNaturalist

Good for Janelle Favaloro. After all, Pileated Woodpeckers should indeed bring us together in celebration of a bird unique across North America; there’s nothing like it in the U.S. and Canada now that the (convergent) Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct. (Similarly, Europe has a unique and striking sibling species called Black Woodpecker.)

But I myself have an additional take on this pileated’s misadventures. Not that I wish ill toward the folks of Squam Hill and their mirrors — to the contrary. But I do credit their woodpecker for giving the rest of us, at least symbolically, a bit of what humans dish out toward birds all the time: vandalism.

Despite our genuine affinity for birds and other wildlife, we passively damage their property, mostly in the depletion or destruction of habitat for our shopping malls, farmland, forestry, roads, housing, and the other ways we go about the business of being human. Among birds, habitat loss tends to be a more proximate threat than, say, pollution or the climate disaster (not to discount them in the least bit).

Rarely to never do the birds exact any kind of retribution, even unwittingly like the Pileated Woodpecker of Squam Hill. Oh sure, Pigeons crap on statues in city parks. Canada Geese can be territorial and aggressive at parks and golf courses. And Common Ravens steal food from backpackers. But these are minor infractions compared to the myriad of human abuses that deplete the abundance and diversity of birds, making the world less beautiful, less musical, and less interesting.

So might we make amends? Beyond the actions we already know — voting out cruel and heartless politicians who care nothing for nature, supporting conservation groups, living smaller ourselves and finding respite in wild places — I don’t have many answers for you. Well, perhaps one: empathy. I aspire to feel more of nature’s pain.

Oddly enough, I’ll mention the film “Jurassic Park,” adapted from Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel by the same name. If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, the plot features a group of people on an island being pursued by a Tyrannosaurus rex, a pack of velociraptors, and various other dinosaurs genetically engineered back from extinction (including species harboring no hostility whatsoever toward humans). Beyond the film’s message of hubris, and beyond how real these dinosaurs appear on screen, I’ll confess that what I like most about “Jurassic Park” is the turnabout notion of humans as prey to wildlife. Sure, it’s science fiction — but it’s visceral (and well-acted, including by the dinosaurs, which weren’t at all fictional). (Film clip below.)

Most of us are fortunate to live in safety — secure in our homes and communities: no bombs falling, no men with guns coming after us, not even politicians violating our constitutional rights. Still, when it hurts to see and read in the news of hatred and injustice, it evokes in us sympathy for people elsewhere living under such threats; we can act accordingly.

So I don’t mind the notion of a woodpecker breaking glass or even in the extreme fictional dinosaurs (direct ancestors to birds) as our predators. It’s wildlife turning the tables on us. And I guess it works for me — it helps me think and act.

After all, despite the abuses we direct at them, birds continue to bring us their gifts: color, flight, music, grace, force, joy. They ask absolutely nothing in return other than our morality and respect.

So at the very least, amid the shattered glass, however symbolic, I can empathize a bit more with what birds and other wildlife too often endure every day in a broken natural world.

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Postscripts

• One of Substack’s most searing and brilliant voices on the troubled state of the Earth is

  Jason Anthony
  writing
  Field Guide to the Anthropocene
  . Also find your footing with
  Amanda Royal
  at
  Earth Hope
  . And a plug for relative newcomer to Substack
  Jessica Groenendijk
  writing at
  NATURE'S BLUE HOUR
  .

• Many thanks to John Serrao for permission to use his iNaturalist image of a Pileated Woodpecker at a window — not in Rockport, but rather in Florida. The two final woodpecker shots, also from iNaturalist, are from Josh Lincoln and Сергей Неклюдов.

• The New York Times’ coverage of the Rockport, Massachusetts, Pileated Woodpecker.

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