{"id":1301,"date":"2019-09-18T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T12:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lafayettepark.org\/staging_5\/?p=1301"},"modified":"2021-09-07T03:20:51","modified_gmt":"2021-09-07T03:20:51","slug":"downy-woodpecker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lafayettepark.org\/staging_5\/downy-woodpecker\/","title":{"rendered":"HEADBANGER"},"content":{"rendered":"
BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n
Rushing out the door, I went over the list in my head: Shorts and a breathable tee\u2014check. Running shoes\u2014check. Baseball cap, sunglasses, and sunblock\u2014check. Keys and ID\u2014check.  Workout playlist queued up on the smartphone in my pocket\u2014check. Everything was in order as I stepped out of my building.<\/h5>\n
Or so I thought.<\/h5>\n
I took my time heading up Mississippi, allowing legs and lungs to warm up, but in five minutes time I passed through the historic gates at of Lafayette Park. My goal was several times around at a pace fast enough to raise my heart rate for 20-30 minutes… but as I as prepared to begin I realized with dismay I\u2019d left behind a critical component\u2014my earbuds!<\/h5>\n
The thought of a workout sans soundtrack, and with zero caffeine in my system to boot, was disheartening to say the least. I need the motivation of a musical pulse so I considered, briefly, heading back home to retrieve the missing piece of audio equipment. “No worries,” I rationalized. “The rushed retreat will count as cardio time!”<\/h5>\n
Then I considered the conversation waiting for me back home. I knew my dog, Dash, would demand to know why I was leaving him behind, again, and that guilt, extra treats, and a stern chewing out would be the price of my second solo departure.  With that scenario in mind I started down the path, summoning the will to power through.<\/h5>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

About 10 minutes later I noticed I was walking to a faint drumbeat. At first I thought someone who had NOT forgotten their audio equipment had the volume turned up to 11, but then I realized the thumping came from the woods themselves. It wasn\u2019t too long before I spotted the drummer, dressed more appropriately for jazz than heavy metal in the stylish black-and-white houndstooth jacket and jaunty red cap of a male Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens<\/em>).<\/h5>\n
In spite of the bird\u2019s diminutive size\u2014no more than 6\u201d from head to tail-tip and weighing in at an ounce or less\u2014his wardrobe set him apart on that overcast day from the silvery tree trunk backdrop.<\/h5>\n
Downys are capable of making a noise disproportionate to their size. When a woodpecker is looking for a mate or claiming a territory, the sound of drumming needs to carry; building a nursery cavity using a beak as a jackhammer isn’t quiet either. But if you\u2019re in the woods and the beat is more bongo than boogie, hunger is probably the drummer\u2019s muse. A gentle tap, tap, tap betrays hollow spots beneath the bark where wood-boring insect larvae wait.<\/h5>\n
\"\"Once dinner has been detected things get\u2026 interesting. That short chisel of a beak hardly prepares you for what\u2019s inside\u2014like many other woodpeckers, the Downy has a barbed, sticky, and flexible tongue so long it wraps around the skull when at rest. If ever there was a bird ready-made for rock \u2018n roll, it\u2019s the woodpecker. Gene Simmons got nothin\u2019 on these headbangers.<\/h5>\n
The whole tone of my morning changed in an instant. It\u2019s so easy to carry a personal soundtrack wherever I go and miss all the ambient sounds happening just beyond the technology plugged into my ears. As a result of my forgetfulness that morning, I suddenly had a standing-room-only ticket to a great live performance, one I would surely have missed had this excursion proceeded according to plan.<\/h5>\n
My walk could wait. I stayed for several encores and gave that Downy an enthusiastic round of applause as he flew off toward his next gig.<\/h5>\n
Learn more about the birds who call Lafayette Park home<\/span><\/a><\/span>!<\/h5>\n
\n
\u00a9<\/strong> 2011 Next-Door Nature\u2014no reprints without written permission from the author (I\u2019d love for you to share my work , just ask first). Thanks to these photographers for making their work available through a Creative Commons license (from top to bottom): CheepShot<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>ehpien<\/span><\/a>, and Florida Center for Instructional Technology<\/span>.<\/em><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Rushing out the door, I went over the list in my head: Shorts and a breathable tee\u2014check. Running shoes\u2014check. Baseball cap, sunglasses, and sunblock\u2014check. Keys and ID\u2014check.  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":0,"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16],"tags":[18,24,25,26,6,27,28,29,30,9,10,31,12,13,32,14,15,33,17,34],"class_list":["post-1301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-wildlife","tag-backyard-wildlife","tag-behavior","tag-biology","tag-bird-behavior","tag-birds","tag-breeding-behavior","tag-clues-and-signs","tag-downy-woodpecker","tag-feeding-behavior","tag-lafayette-park","tag-lafayette-square","tag-natural-history","tag-nature","tag-saint-louis","tag-suburban-wildlife","tag-urban-wildlife","tag-watchable-wildlife","tag-wild-birds","tag-wildlife","tag-woodpeckers"],"yoast_head":"\nHEADBANGER - Lafayette Park Conservancy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lafayettepark.org\/staging_5\/downy-woodpecker\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"HEADBANGER - Lafayette Park Conservancy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Rushing out the door, I went over the list in my head: Shorts and a breathable tee\u2014check. 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