Drum. Drum. Drum. For several mornings earlier this month, that sound is all I heard. A Downy woodpecker was using a cottonwood tree I walk past on my route to see the morning newspaper as its sounding board. The woodpecker arrived at dawn, like clockwork. Beating its head back and forth on that poor, unfortunate tree at a frantic pace. I don’t speak woodpecker, but I’ve read enough to know that this incessant headbanging is one of two things. It is either to get the attention of a mate (spring is in the air after all) or, it’s the bird’s way of making its territory known to all challengers.
I was walking Maggie the first time I heard it, no recorder in hand. I stopped, looked up, listened, pondered. I had a hunch the crazy little bird would come back. So I came early the next morning, without the dog. I sat down on a cold, hard wooden bench conveniently located next to the tree. I watched the sunrise across the river, flipped through pages of a paperback, and waited for the show. Armed this time, with my recorder, and a pair of contact microphones. This 9 minute, 58-second chronological track is a combination of the recordings I made four mornings in a row.
The Downy woodpecker is the smallest of the woodpeckers that roam these trees. Yet its little beak packs a punch. Contact microphones allow us to enter a world we never hear with our naked ears. In this case, they amplify the bird’s calling card. Its drumming seems woodier, less reverberant. Slight variations in tone are distinguishable as the bird scampers from limb to limb. The din of early morning traffic is all but removed. The constant sound of the flowing river, and the ducks that swim in it, provide a faint backdrop. Finally, the woodpecker flies off to another tree.
Satisfaction came over me each time this little woodpecker touched down to perform. Its talons grip dry wood. I was in the right place at the right time, recorder rolling, capturing its raucous rap song, from inside the tree.
Duration 9:57
Read More about Downy Woodpeckers Below
- Read what the Cornell Lab says about them here.
- Read a detailed scientific explanation of how woodpeckers drum on trees without getting brain damage here.
- Read about, listen to, and buy my earlier work recording trees with contact microphones here. The album features the sound of another Downy woodpecker drumming, this time on a live utility pole!
