woodpecker collage
Wood Peckers have been showing up in my collages and drawings lately. I’m not sure why. I know I love the sound they make. It is a mystery how they can tap at the wood that fast. Also it seems a miracle that their head and neck can take that kind of a beating with out any ill effects. The other day I was in the woods with most of my kids and a little neighbor girl, We were in the process of making a bridge across a stream with logs, branches, and wooden pallets when I picked up a log out of the mud that had several holes in it from a woodpecker.
The wood pecker holes made this old portion of a dead tree into something beautiful. Perhaps there is something holy about the things that animals have made like bird nests and empty walnut shells left with the teeth marks of a squirrel. I also like the tracks of raccons in the mud along a creek. I like the reminders of the lives of the animals that goes right on in a wild world parallel to our tame world of thermostats and refrigerators.
January 10th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I always thought it interesting how nature has adapted to having habitats seized by man. There are still turkeys roaming Grand Rapids, and deer running through people’s yards. They carry on as if we don’t exist (which is what I guess we do to them) but then there are those (more often than not, birds and rodents) that embrace the new habitat we have created and roost in our signs, under our porches, and in our walls. Are we co-existing or still fighting for territory?
March 18th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
I like your comments about the woodpecker holes (I like all your postings). I put a photo of a “woodpecker tree” on my blog. It is riddled by woodpecker holes of all sizes and shapes. These are the old dead snags the foresters (tree farmers) recommending removing.