Seeing a woodpecker
You often hear a woodpecker before you see it, hammering on a trunk or a metal gutter. The holes it carves rarely stay empty, since other birds and animals move in later, so its work ends up sheltering others.
What it may mean
A woodpecker spends days chiseling a nest hole into a dead branch, raises one brood and often carves a fresh hole the next year. The old one does not go to waste. Chickadees, bluebirds, tree swallows, small owls, flying squirrels and even bats move in, because they cannot dig their own. Ecologists call woodpeckers keystone species for this reason: a whole neighborhood of animals depends on their leftover work. Some of your own efforts may have outlived their first purpose and become a home for someone else: a club you started that others now run, a tradition you began, a skill you taught that is now someone's living. Hearing one rapping overhead, you might look for those. Folk belief has been less kind to the bird, casting it as a sorcerer or a punished soul in some places.
Depending on how you saw it
Hammering on a metal gutter in spring
In early spring, male woodpeckers rap on gutters, chimney caps and siding because the sound carries far, announcing a territory and calling a mate. It is loud but brief. Where are you making noise to be heard rather than to get anything done, and is it working?
Rows of small, neat holes in a tree
Straight rows of little holes in a trunk are often the work of a sapsucker, a woodpecker that drills sap wells. Hummingbirds, insects and other birds come to drink from them in early spring. Which small thing you set up for yourself has fed others too?
A large pileated woodpecker
A crow-sized woodpecker with a flaming red crest is a pileated woodpecker. It carves big rectangular holes in search of carpenter ants, and many animals later shelter in its cavities. Which of your larger efforts has given others room to settle in?
A woodpecker at the suet feeder
Downy and hairy woodpeckers visit suet all winter, clinging upside down and propping themselves with stiff tail feathers. They take what is offered and go back to work. What steady support makes your hard work possible?
Why it happens in nature
Woodpeckers drum on resonant surfaces in spring to claim territory, and they chisel nest holes in dead or soft wood, often a new one each year. Many birds and mammals that cannot excavate, such as bluebirds, chickadees and some owls, rely on old woodpecker holes. Sapsuckers also drill sap wells that hummingbirds feed from.
What folk beliefs say
Missouri, United States
In Missouri, some people believed the woodpecker was a sorcerer who beguiled people.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 718. View the page
To reflect on
Which of your past efforts has become a home or a help for someone else?