Chip Off the Old Block

Today was a sunny winter day, crisp but no wind,  a perfect day for a look around the yard. It was also a perfect day to  climb up a tree

and beat the pulp out of it

...if you're a Pileated Woodpecker of course.

There is no mistaking the sound of a Pileated Woodpecker pounding the living bugs out of a branch. They move purposely up one branch, and then another, foraging their way through the woods.

There is no such thing as subtlety either. This is a bird that knows what he wants, and will go to great lengths to get it. Chip-off-the-old-block is his middle name. And he leaves large chips of bark
and wood all over the ground -a sure sign of his visit.

In Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion, he calls the Pileated Woodpecker (aka Dryocopus pileatus) the slightly unseemly

Log Cock.

But if you think about it, there's the Cock of the Walk  -  or the flamboyant rooster who is master of the chicks.

And this guy, old Chip,  is definitely the biggest bird on the tree

in this neck of the woods!

So Log Cock it is - A finely feathered pecker indeed.