Pileated Woodpecker

I put up a little cheap birdfeeder on the dying tree in our backyard a few weeks ago. It took the birds about 20 minutes to find the seed and every since then, there have been at least a half dozen birds perched on various levels of the branches of that tree. Since it's dead and has no leaves, I can see all of them really clearly. I'm starting to think birdwatching isn't such a lame hobby after all.

I saw one of these on my birdfeeder today ... I've never seen one before and evidently they're pretty elusive and don't show up much. It was HUGE ... I'm talking as big as a crow.



I googled it and was a female Pileated woodpecker. I'm used to seeing these little guys:

The little downy woodpeckers that I've always thought were really cute. The pileated woodpecker blew the downy guy out of the water. The pileated's beak look like it could stab through my forearm. Now I'm glad that tree outside is dead. Yikes.

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So speaking of gigantic wildlife, after I posted this I thought of something else I found last summer buzzing around inside the Pita Pit. It had flown in through the doors and was buzzing around in the windows and when I went to go see what it was, it flew out from behind the neon sign it was stuck behind and I about peed my pants.

I found the best picture I could so you could see how big these little guys are. It's like as long as a grown man's thumb.

I again, googled them and found out that only the females sting, and they attack cicadas, sting them with poison that immobilizes them, carry their bodies up the trunk of a tree and throw themselves off with their legs firmly anchored around the cicada so they can take it back to their burrow and feed it to their young. They have to climb up trees to take off because the cicadas are so heavy the wasps can't pick them up off the ground.

I felt somewhat comforted after reading that online, but seeing a wasp that was as long and as thick as my thumb was pants-wetting scary.