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BIRD COLUMN FOR JUNE 12, 2005
By Benjamin P. Burtt TOPIC: A pileated woodpecker has been attacking his reflection in
outside rear view mirrors of cars as well as his reflection in the windows of homes of a suburb near Syracuse,
NY. Windows and mirrors have been
smashed. this is a copy of my column that appeared
in the Syracuse Post Standard on June 12, , 2004 Kathleen Boswell sent in her April Feeder Survey Report
that listed a pileated woodpecker. She commented, “I didn’t see it, but our
neighbor saw one breaking our mirror on the car in the driveway. Does this
count?” The bird broke another of their mirrors during the May survey week. This bird has caused a lot of damage. It all started in
the spring of 2004 on Brownell and DeVaul roads two miles north-east of
Kirkville. The two roads are
parallel, and separated by about a half mile of forest. Big trees grow near
the homes. A home owner on DeVaul Rd. found a badly damaged screen
and suspecting a prowler or vandal, called the State Police. Neighbors were
interviewed by the police and Richard Miller told them about his car mirror that had broken by a pileated
woodpecker. Several windows and car mirrors had been broken at other
homes too. The police concluded that
the damage on DeVaul Rd. was
done by the woodpecker. On Brownell Rd. where Kathleen Boswell lives, there was
damage to windows and car mirrors at five homes. Three were hit in both years
and two in 2005 only. How can this be explained?Like all birds, the pileated will not tolerate others of
its own kind near its nest. When robins or cardinals nest near our homes, they very
often catch sight of their reflection in a window. They spend fruitless hours
flying up against the glass and pecking it to drive away the intruder. They
never succeed in driving that “other
bird” away. However, a pileated woodpecker is the size of a crow, has
a big bill and it can split out an 8 inch piece of wood from a tree with one
blow if the wood is soft.
Courtesy of Hoiughten Mifflin Co. This
painting is from Peterson’s “Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central
North America When it attacks its reflection, the glass breaks and the
image of the “intruder” disappears.
It thus does “drive” that other bird away!
To illustrate what it sees when a pileated woodpecker looks
in a rear view mirror of a car, Cornell Scientist Kevin McGowan prepared
this illustration for me by holding a
museum-mounted pileated woodpecker up to a car mirror.. Covering the mirrors with plastic grocery bags solved the
problem. However, when the residents forgot to do it, the bird struck again. Eighteen mirrors have been replaced this
season and Thru-Way Auto Glass estimates that they replaced 30 mirrors last
year from residents of that area. I contacted woodpecker expert Prof. Jerome Jackson of Florida Gulf Coast University and he
knows of no prior report in the scientific literature of car mirrors being
broken by pileated woodpeckers. This particular bird seems to be unique. . |
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