White-headed woodpecker swoops
Clings to corneous bark of stump
Disappears before my eyes
When Amy of WildBirdontheFly asked for Twittered bird-related poems that included the word “corneous” I thought of the bark of this tree and the White-headed Woodpeckers I saw there. I’m thrilled that my poem won her contest and I’ll be getting a new book: The Armchair Birder: Discovering the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds
I promised, upon winning, to share the story behind the poem. When we arrived at our campsite in Sequoia National Forest, we got the motorhome settled and then did a little exploring around the site. Directly behind our motorhome was a small pine tree and behind that was a stump of a much larger tree. As I watched, a woodpecker swooped in and landed. It hopped up and down and then around the tree out of my site. I sent my son around the other side so he could see it. And, there was nothing there. I’d been watching the whole time and never saw it leave. Shrugging, I finished setting up the camp.
It wasn’t until later that I realized that the only answer was that it went into a hole in the stump. A nest.
So, later that day, I checked it out and it was there. I watched for quite a while and the mother and father flew in and out regularly, showing no concern about our being nearby. I got a decent picture and pulled out my Sibley Guide. They are White-headed Woodpeckers.
White-headed Woodpeckers tend their young together. They are very attentive to each other during the incubation (according to All About Birds). I like that I captured the two of them sharing a moment.
When I finally got a chance to be alone, I set up my tripod and took some better shots. I love the combination of a tripod and rapid shot mode.I’d never seen a White-headed Woodpecker before so my thrill was doubled. A lifer! And catching one of them in-flight is almost as thrilling as seeing them to begin with — look at that action!
After I took the pictures, I did sneak up to the nest and take a quick video of the babies. I could hear them chirping in there. I didn’t want to worry them or distress the parents so Ireally did make it quick but I wanted to share it.
The first sound you hear is not a bird. It’s a marmot. I’ll share more about the marmots in a future post. Enjoy!
All content written by Liza Lee Miller unless otherwise noted.
© 2009, Liza Lee Miller. 
mother. wife. friend. teacher. writer. reader. photographer. birder. quilter. blogger.
Liza Lee Miller 
Terrific lifer and congratulations on winning the Twitter poem!
Brilliant, Liza Lee. And I love those woodpecker pics!
I could not have risen to the challenge of writing a poem including the word “corneous,” but I admire both your ingenuity and your poetry. And I am beyond admiration for the in-flight photos. I hadn’t thought to use the tripod with the continuous photo mode but it’s on my list to play with now.
Wonderful encounter and images. I love the in flight shots too, they amaze me, always! Love your twitter poem!
Wow, those white-headed woodpeckers are beautiful. What a great find in your campsite. It doesn’t get much better than that.
All around a wonderful post. Yay on winning anything through poetry.
Who knew you could use corneous in a poem?
Who knew there was Twitter poetry? Not me–jeez, I am falling behind the times.
And the white-headed woodpecker. Oh my–so cool.
By the way, I like your new blog title and photo. Maybe you have had it up a bit, and I just missed it. After all, I didn’t know about Twitter poetry.
Great in flight picture! Love to hear the babies too.
Holy cow… I can’t believe I’ve missed so many great posts Liza! For whatever reason, I’m not getting your RSS feed on Bloglines, and haven’t since 6/16. :c(
As I was going over my blogs list on my sidebar, I said to myself, “Hmmm… wonder what’s up with Liza” as it dawned on me I’d not seen a recent post. And here they all are.
Excuse me while I play catch up and drool over this White-headed woodpecker!! Welcome home, uh, two weeks ago. :c)