The Pileated High: The Apogee Of Happiness

I had one big dream for this summer as far as birds were concerned: I wanted to catch a pileated woodpecker. I'd been wanting to see one for a long time in California, and I knew they were sometimes spotted in the Santa Cruz mountains, but they continually eluded me. I don't know what sparked my interest originally, I think it was partly others' excitement when they reported seeing pileateds and also the description in the bird book that they were as big as a crow!

I think I first realized I might get to handle one in DC when I saw my advisor's web page, on which there is a photo of him holding a pileated woodpecker, and he told me that the photo was taken on this project. I was so excited and hopeful, but he told me that they had caught very few over the past five years on the project, a total of two or three over all that time, and that it was by no means a guarantee that the team would catch one this year at all. Then I got placed on a crew that only visited urban sites such as Baltimore and Foggy Bottom, and I let go of my dream.

Yesterday, my advisor offered Eagle Eyes the opportunity to switch it up and go to Jug Bay, a forested, rural site, on Thursday. Eager to see Jug Bay, I requested to go today. Not put off by the warning of encountering many mosquitoes and possibly ticks, as well as getting up a full hour earlier, I jumped at the chance to visit a beautiful site.

Arriving there this morning in the pitch black at 4:30 am, my crew chief showed me a few net lanes good for setting up mist nets off a trail in the forest and then he drove off. My co-worker had warned me it was easy to get turned around in the forest and I must admit I was nervous I would lose my way in the dark or fall off of one of the steep drops. Still, despite this, it was thrilling to be out in the forest alone in the dark. Thrilling and so very, very peaceful. Once the sun came up, here's what the view looked like off the road, where the stream ran through the site. You can see why I'd worry about getting lost in the dark setting up in spots where there was no trail, especially having never been there before!


The day was going well, but I couldn't stop thinking about the pileateds since I heard them all around me. I was also excited to hear lots of yellow billed cuckoos, whose call sounds like "Arf Arf" to me. I wished we could catch a pileated or cuckoo, but knew the odds were very low, so I barely dared to hope.

Then I went on a net run to check the nets I had set up in the dark that morning and coming up the hill by an old, collapsed barn, a quarter mile into the forest, I saw this:


My heart leapt. I'd seen what I thought was a blurry flash of a pileated one morning a few weeks ago at our Chevy Chase site, but I'd never gotten a good look at a pileated. It was every bit as striking and beautiful as I had imagined. More so in fact. It was huge, even bigger than I had pictured in my mind. And so distinctive. My co-worker says he thinks they look like dinosaurs.

I took out my camera and started frantically shooting photos while creeping slowly closer. I approached another ten feet, then another, and still the pileated did not take off.

It suddenly dawned on me that the pileated might be caught in my net! My heart leapt yet again, I shook with excitement and putting down the camera, abandoned my previous stealthy approach and strode quickly towards the bird.

Once I was close, I could see it was indeed caught in my net, although initially it appeared it was caught just by one foot and I feared it might break loose and fly off in its desperate thrashing, as a not insignificant number of birds do when you get close to them. (It turned out that it also had one wing hooked, but the foot is what really did it in, probably because of woodpeckers' unusual zygodactyl toes).

I was so afraid I would lose it that I lunged for the bird, catching it in both hands. It wasn't easy to get its tangled foot free, but once I did I was holding a pileated woodpecker, alone in the woods, in the quiet and beauty, my dream come true.

I can't even describe the feeling I had at that point. Ecstasy. Sublime. There are no words. It is a moment I will remember for the rest of my life. I could not have been more excited had I been holding an ivory billed woodpecker. It was an all-encompassing, in the moment happiness that was as or more intense than any physical pleasure I have ever experienced (sexual, athletic or culinary etc), and beyond comparison to any human interaction I have ever had, friendship or relationship. Think of all the cliches: fireworks, something to write home about. They don't do that moment justice. It was the culmination of all my anticipation coming true and being more incredible than I had thought it would be. It was a result of being alone in the woods, having conquered my fear of being left there alone in the dark of early morning and by that point in the day feeling utterly comfortable and content alone there. It was a momentary deeply intimate connection, merging if you will, with another species, the one of my dreams this summer.

The pileated screamed the entire time I carried it back to the banding station. It was just as pissed off as any crow or jay I have ever handled, which further endeared it to me. I don't expect or desire wild animals to be docile and cute, the more independent, fierce, fiery, and full of fight they seem, the more I admire and fall for them. Wild is about not needing humans, not even liking humans, but being a separate world that us humans are not part of, not needed in.

I took a blood sample to test for antibodies to West Nile virus and we measured the distance between primary 10 (P10) and its covert in order to determine whether it was a hatch year (it probably was).

Then we took a bunch of pictures. Enjoy:






Here I am with the bird by the banding station:


Then, since it was a juvenile, I walked it back to the site where I had caught it so that it would know where it was and not get lost. Yes, it hurt when I misjudged my hold and it bit me. It drew blood on the first nip. I didn't care in the least. I think I would have been happy had it been eviscerating me. Nothing, not the nip, the mosquitoes or anything else could diminish my pleasure in any way.



I didn't want to let it go, so I gave it to my co-worker to release. When he opened his hands, it didn't fly off immediately but stayed put a few seconds before it realized it was free to go:


And here is perhaps my favorite shot of the bunch: the pileated taking off for freedom. There are few feelings better in the world than setting a wild animal free. I treasured my brief connection to this bird, but was cognizant the entire time that it was likely terrified of me and that it was a wild animal that only wanted to get away from my restraint and go back to its life that I know so little about, that does not involve me in any intimate way, which is as it should be. Goodbye my dear pileated, I will never forget you. Thank you for existing.