Words to I Think I Hear a Woodpecker Knocking at My Family Tree
The trouble started terminal Nov. We woke upward to a muffled, steady borer noise on our bedchamber wall. It had that weird, rhythmic but irregular quality, one of those mysterious kinds of patterns where y'all're non sure if it's just the radiator coming on, or someone trying to tap out a message from the other side of the wall. As our brains started to come up online, information technology was clear information technology wasn't the radiator, or one of the kids tapping — the audio was coming from the exterior of the business firm. I stuck my head out the window to see a downy woodpecker sticking hishead out of the hole he'd just drilled in the side of our firm.
Having a woodpecker live inside the walls of your home is an unequivocally bad thing. It'due south not just the noise (though information technology is a drag not being able to sleep in on the weekends). Even the featherlike, the smallest of our woodpeckers, tin do serious damage to a home.
I reached out to Joan Walsh of Mass Audubon, who has become my indispensable consultant on woodpecker behavior, and she confirmed we had a problem.
"You actually don't want a family unit of 4 woodpeckers in between your sheetrock inside your firm and your exterior. It's going to scent, information technology's going to be bad for everybody," she said.
Arun Rath/WGBH News
And while my wife was kind plenty not to bring it upward every fourth dimension we woke to the borer, the woodpecker trouble was entirely my fault. Our domicile faces conservation state in Lexington, and I love to feed and interact with the variety of wild birds that frequent our backyard. Some of these birds now recognize me by sight, and some private relationships have evolved, equally they've figured out they tin can wing upward and "inquire" for their favorite treats to be replenished. Chickadees and titmice politely asking sunflower seeds, robins ask for mealworms, blue jays holler at me for peanuts. And this item downy woodpecker would wing to the window by my desk-bound to request sunflower seeds and for a supply of suet to be refilled — non far from where he would determine to drill a hole conveniently close to the bird smorgasbord.
Manifestly I'm a bird lover, and I think woodpeckers are especially wonderful — I mean, a lot of birds sing, but how many can sing and play drums? Just no one wants to exist housemates with a drummer, especially one who starts at 7 a.1000.
Walsh explains that woodpeckers blindside on wood for ii distinct reasons: construction or advice.
"When they're drumming to attract a mate, and declare their territory, it says 2 things: one, 'I'm here!' to another male. And to a female person, information technology says [in a sexy, come-hither phonation], 'I'grand here,'" Walsh said. "What happened to you was non a tweet that he was sending out, or a Tinder profile that he was sending out. It was it was more that he was building a home."
"We apologize for that behavior, just we'll will send him a memo," she added with a laugh.
But in all seriousness, how practise you ship that memo to a woodpecker proverb, "please move out?" It was crucial we convince the downy to do and so earlier he started posting that Tinder profile and starting a family it would be illegal to adios. The standard first approach would be the scarecrow method — hanging objects that might frighten the bird, like flashy mylar streamers. But given his comfort level with my family, it was unlikely we could scare this bird.
"Now I think nosotros've passed that point," Walsh said. "I retrieve that if we dangle some Mylar hither, he'south going to be unperturbed. He's got a nice business firm in a leafy suburb of Boston."
Walsh suggested another pick that wasn't certain to piece of work, but sounded intriguing: offering the woodpecker an upgrade. We would look until the bird was out, cover the hole with metal, so hang a nesting box directly over the hole.
"Make full it with some forest shavings, and fifty-fifty some leaves and some natural stuff and so it doesn't odour similar something from Ikea, so it really smells similar the world out in that location," Walsh said. "He might buy information technology."
This was an heady prospect. The bird gets an awesome house, the bird lover gets to watch a woodpecker enhance a family unit up close, without the inconvenience of them defecating inside of the walls. I followed all of Walsh's instructions, including painting the box to lucifer the house (it turns out our house color, greyness, happens to be a woodpecker favorite). I had dreams of putting in a camera to watch the babies.
Arun Rath/WGBH News
But since we put it up, the woodpecker hasn't been back. I went back to see Walsh, feeling rejected.
"And then he didn't take to the renovation, to the ... upscaling of the neighborhood?" she asked.
I couldn't believe he didn't like my beautiful nesting box. "No, no, he moved on," I replied.
"Well, that's the desired result for you," Walsh reminded me.
"Yeah," I said, sadly. "Just it kinda hurts my feelings."
Walsh reassured me it was a cute nesting box, and offered, past way of encouragement, her opinion that it was well-nigh impossible some bird wouldn't take advantage.
"Someone will move in. It's almost unheard of that you present a crenel in the leafy suburbs, beautifully formed, up loftier off the basis … really no danger, no cats going to become it. No raccoons going to climb up there. If this stays unoccupied for the whole summer, I'd be shocked," Walsh added.
Sure enough, inside days of that conversation I saw a pair of house sparrows going in and out of the bird house, carrying twigs — an unmistakable sign of nesting.
My heart sank. Information technology may sound strange that an avowed bird lover tin't stand sparrows, but I'm not alone.
"They're not native birds," said Walsh. "They're European birds that were released nigh a hundred years agone in (New York'due south) Central Park. And and then, yous don't want them. We don't really don't want to encourage them."
So after all that, I'chiliad taking the nesting box down before the sparrows have a chance to become in the family manner. But Walsh says this may not be the final chapter.
"I'grand wondering if iii months from, vi months from now, nosotros're going to be talking virtually the woodpecker who's using your house every bit a drumming tree, considering he's found a great place to live and now he's making a lot of noise on your firm," she said.
While my house may non be good enough to live in, it may all the same exist useful for posting a woodpecker Tinder contour. I but wish they had a quieter mode to swipe right.
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Source: https://www.wgbh.org/news/2018/04/20/how-we-live/woodpecker-hammering-your-house-heres-how-evict-it