Learning the Ropes

  It is always exciting to witness new life here on the Bayou.  With all of the gloom and doom in the world today, finding a bit of hope is refreshing.  Although, in the critter world, things are a lot different than in the human aspect of things.  Critters only have one thought and that is to survive.  There is not all of the backstabbing, criticizing, whining and arguing that we, as humans, are so prone to do.  Critters merely find food and shelter and let everything else fall into place on its own accord.  Humans would do well to emulate these actions and let go of a lot of their stress-inducing idiocy.

  The new life vision of the day was a young Red-belly Woodpecker out trying to learn the ropes of being an adult bird.  Mama Woodpecker was showing her young all of the usual hiding places of bugs and, also, give the youngster the lowdown on finding suitable shelter from any storms.  A dead pine tree seemed to be the perfect place for both. The tree had been struck by lightning several years ago and was now riddled with holes.  A lot of these were from woodpeckers pounding away in search of grubs and a few actually had been occupied as dwellings by Red-headed Woodpeckers in years past.  Now, flying squirrels seem to be the dominate tenants of the old tree.  A few of those were probably not too happy to have the clumsy, young woodpecker popping in and out of their holes.

  Obviously, only one of the little woodpeckers had survived.  Mama had hatched three but it did not take long before the Cooper's Hawk caught the first little one.  Apparently, a second met its demise in a similar way but this one seemed hale and healthy.  The pair of Mama and youngster worked the old pine for quite some time.  Mama was dutifully teaching her little one how to survive before she found herself with another clutch of eggs to hatch.  By that time, Little One had better be well on his own.  She will forget he exists and focus fully on protecting her new eggs.  He had better listen well while he has the chance!