Strange Happenings Amidst the Walnut Tree

I was watching Die Hard With a Vengeance tonight when I heard a loud crack at one of the windows. I know that sound. It’s the sickening sound of beak and skull striking glass at high speed. I took the ice off my knee and went outside to have a look.
As I rounded the corner I found a woodpecker lying on its belly, its wings splayed out. I stopped, it wasn’t moving, but just as I took another step toward the bird it hopped up and flew away. It was erratic, but strong. I thought, “That doesn’t look like a bird that just hit a window” and then I looked down. Just ten feet away was the other woodpecker, flat on its back, talons up as if it were grasping an invisible branch. I knew as I approached that it hadn’t survived. Its lifeless eyes were a dead giveaway. Immediately the tragic scenario played out in my head.

Woodpeckers mate for life, and these two were always together. If you saw one, the other wasn’t far away. I used to sit and watch them play together, streaking over the field, chasing each other from tree to tree. It was a beautiful thing to behold. I can picture them now, in the middle of a game of bird chase, careening over the yard, until “Crack!” The first bird probably never even blinked. What would it be like to watch your true love struck down right before your eyes? I may have reacted in a similar fashion, dumbstruck, staring in disbelief, not making a sound. “What is the other one going to do now?” I thought. Its partner, its life partner, is gone. Never again will it play chase over the field. Never again will it share a juicy carpenter ant with its best friend. Everything it lived for was taken from it in an instant.

I knelt down beside the dead woodpecker and blew on its feathers, hoping to rouse it, knowing it was hopeless. I waited a few minutes, hoping it would come to, knowing it was hopeless. Then I gently picked it up and carried it onto the porch where I could see it, where it would be safe from the cat, just in case. I came inside to write a story.

Twenty minutes later I was only three sentences in, mostly because I kept looking up to see if the woodpecker had somehow come back to life and flown away, when I heard the sickening sound of beak and skull striking glass at speed. “It killed itself!” I exclaimed out loud and rushed out to see if it was true, but in the minute that it took me to get there, whatever had hit that window was gone. I searched and searched, but could find nothing. Perplexed, I looked around. All of a sudden out of the walnut tree flew a different kind of bird. It was about the same size as the woodpeckers, but all brown. This struck me as odd, because I can’t remember ever seeing another kind of bird in that tree. Then out flew the other woodpecker, chasing it. “Murder…” I thought, “…the little buggar found a sexy new bird, and he killed his mate to be with her.” But then two robins flew out of the tree from the other side and started fighting, or foreplay, I couldn’t be sure. Then yet another bird flew out. This one was smaller, with a hint of blue perhaps. Something strange was happening. As I watched the two robins still going at each other, my other senses began tuning in to my surroundings. There were a lot of birds out. Everywhere I looked there were robins. In the trees, on the clothesline, the picnic table, one even flew down, caught a bug in the grass, and landed on a bench just ten feet away from me. It sat there defiantly, watching me watch it eat. I could hear birds chirping excitedly all around, and in the distance I could make out an eagle calling. Something very strange was happening. The hairs on my arms began to stand. I stood outside for a long time, listening and watching, but not a bird stirred. They were everywhere, but motionless. After a while nothing was happening, so I went back inside, to find the cat with its face pressed up against the window. When it heard me it turned and ran for the door. Even it knew something was up.

As it got darker things settled down. Most of the birds have flown off, but I can’t help wondering if they wanted something. Perhaps they only wanted to pay their last respects. I’m tempted to bring the dead woodpecker back out into the grass so they can say goodbye. I’ve seen TV shows with elephants clearly grieving over the loss of a member of their herd. I wonder of it’s the same with birds. Maybe this woodpecker was a pillar of the community. Perhaps the two of them were loved by all, and it was a heartbreaking moment for the entire neighborhood. But, maybe it was a turf war. What if those robins were up to no good? Maybe they wanted the carpenter ant score to themselves, and when the woodpeckers wouldn’t leave town, they rubbed one out. I’m going to keep an eye on those robins from now on, shady bastards. Maybe that brown bird showed up just in time to talk some sense into the lone woodpecker. Maybe he was making a stand, surrounded by blood thirsty robins. Perhaps this was to be his Alamo. He had nothing left to lose. But at the last minute a voice of reason on mottled brown wings convinced him to abandon his post and live to fight another day. They could now be plotting revenge while the gang of robins feasts on its ill-gotten spoils. I think now I won’t produce the woodpecker’s corpse. I wouldn’t want that dastardly band of tree pirates to get their claws on it. I think tomorrow I am going to bury it at the base of the old walnut tree, so that in death it may nourish that which it helped destroy. It seems a fitting end, akin to the philosophy of the Circle of Life.

Rest in Peace little woodpecker.