Woodpecker Reveille

     I woke up this morning to drilling on the roof.  When Mike and I heard the same sound the day before, we thought it was something vibrating in the furnace room.  Now we realized that the overhead sound was moving from place to place.  We got out the back door just in time to see a woodpecker taking off from the roof.
     The little devil came back a few more times during the very early morning hours.  By eight o'clock, he was done.  I was pretty sure there were no bugs on the roof, so why was Woody jackhammering the shingles?  Woodpeckers bore into trees to find food, excavate a nesting cavity, or attract mates.  They also drill into wood roofs or siding for the same reason.  They tap on non-wood surfaces to establish territory.  This is called drumming and it occurs in March, April, and May.  My red headed visitor intends to make my yard his domain.
     Though I might have had murder in my heart this morning at the crack of dawn, I'm forbidden to act upon the desire.  Woodpeckers are federally protected under the North American Migratory Bird Act.  The only thing I can do is make my roof less appealing for my morning percussionist. One solution is to hang shiny objects or stick mylar tape around vent stacks and chimneys since woodpeckers hate shiny things.  They also hate wet surfaces under their feet, so you can spray water on the roof.  Balloons might work, but the neighbors would start comparing this place to the house in the movie "Up."  Pest control companies suggest playing CD's of predator calls to scare the birds.  They also suggest buying a hawk decoy.  I read that you have to move the hawk every day so the woodpeckers don't catch on that he's made of plastic.

http://www.bamabirds.com/birdinfo/woodpeckers.htm 
http://www.wildlifedamagecontrol.net/woodpeckers.php

     Fifty percent of the time woodpeckers stop drumming in two weeks whether homeowners do anything or not.  The other fifty percent of the time you might feel like a player in this Andy Panda/Woody Woodpecker cartoon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU_HciKS6_E

     There is a legend about how the woodpecker came to be.  One day an old woman was baking cakes.  A Saint, faint with hunger, was wandering the roads and was drawn to her house by the smell of baking.  He asked for something to eat, but the old woman didn't want to give him such a big cake.  She made a smaller one, then decided that this cake was also too big.  Finally, she made a third, tiny cake.  When she took it out of the oven, it had puffed up to be much larger than she expected.  She told the Saint that her cakes were too big to give away.  This made the Saint angry.  He told the woman that she was too greedy to have human form.  She had food, shelter, and a warm fire, but she was too selfish to share.  He cursed her to a life of living as a bird, picking in the woods for nuts and berries and boring trees for her meager existence.  No sooner had the Saint said this than the woman flew up the chimney and came out the top as a woodpecker.
     If I could just get that bitch off my roof...