5/9/23 - Woodpecker Reflections

On a whim, I put a mirror in a crook of a tree near my fire pit. Where I placed it, is very subtle. It messes with your perspective. It bounces light weirdly. You end up looking through a solid tree, which just can't be. If you don’t know it’s there, you might think you are looking into another realm.

And now, it’s caught the eye of a piliated woodpecker.

Every morning, an hour after dawn, the wood pecker flies in to look into the mirror. The first time he found it, I watched him. He moved all around it. He tentatively tapped on it. He showed his mate. They both climbed around it. They spent an hour foraging and preening. And every morning since then, he’s come back to gaze into the looking glass. He spends about an hour a day there, eyeing himself, and warming up in the early sun.

Perhaps his name is Narcissus.

This morning, I finally got motivated to try and catch a photo of it. I pulled out my ancient Nikon 5100 and my old telephoto lens. By some miracle, one of the batteries still had 1/3 charge.

After turning it on and looking at all the buttons, I realized I completely forgot how to operate it.

I hit buttons and spun the dials til I was able to take a photograph of my foot.

Then, i snuck outside and tried to act casual - there's a definite style of walk to sneak up on wildlife… kind of a bored saunter… maybe I ambled, I don't know, but the bottom line is, you don't race up to a wild animal. You sidle up to it. You can't appear interested.

And I did good! I was able to brace my camera on a good maple tree about 65 ft away and catch the following images.

Quite pleased!