Woodpecker! | North Vancouver Photographer

Every day for the past couple of weeks I have been dealing with a persistent and annoying tapping outside our bedroom windows starting early in the morning and continuing off and on all day. I discovered that it is thanks to a cheeky woodpecker who has taken to tapping a hole into the side of our home. If I come out and scare it away, he/she flies around to the other side and attacks the wall on the back of the house! While one of the great things about living in North Vancouver, and especially beside a forest is the abundance of wildlife (we have eagles nesting, and don’t forget the bears), and the steady rush of the salmon bearing stream next to us, it also means some nuisances relating to North Vancouver’s wildlife (raccoons, bears and skunks getting into garbage). Well of course this naughty little woodpecker has added to the nuisance factor.

He/She recognizes me now I think, and watches me for a second before flying off when I clap my hands or toss a pebble onto the siding of the house. Yesterday I was determined to not only capture it’s exploits with my camera (thanks 70-300mm lens!), but to observe it and discover what the heck it finds so interesting about our siding.

This is where it flies after I scare it away. It can see me from there and waits for me to leave.

Here is it’s usual position. Hanging out watchfully as it knows I am there.

It taps and taps, chipping away, making the hole bigger (not sure why the hole is there in the first place), as you can see by the wood condition.

But then I discovered what it is really doing. I suspect it’s building a nest. You can see the little piece of insulation in it’s beak. It reaches in and pulls it out then drops it on the ground.

This is one of the piles of insulation on the ground. Little bits of it are all over.

This is what awaits it the next time it comes back. Can’t have it building a nest in the walls, though if it does then I suppose we’ll have baby birds to observe? But I’m a little concerned about the dangers of it building a nest where there very well may be electrical wires.

So it’s been annoying having to listen to the tapping, but at the same time, it’s pretty cute, and very cheeky. Time will tell if we have baby woodpeckers stuffed into a nest inside the wall….