Well THAT certainly was strange. The poor Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) trapped between the glass of the window and the screen which he has just crashed through.

This afternoon we were in the living room when we heard a very loud thump. We immediately went to the porch, knowing that sound. The thump of a bird that crashed into a window. But this was a much larger bird than we have had crash in previous incidents. A Pileated Woodpecker has a length of 16 to 19 inches and a wingspan of 26 to 30 inches. I have always felt confident that the screens we have in nearly all of our windows are a life saver for birds. That certainly was the case with this critter.

He appeared to be uninjured but still very frantic. Upon crashing into the screen it had ripped an L-shaped tear. He was flitting up and down the narrow space between the glass and the screen, going to the opening but managing each time to miss slipping through.

Using his bill in a very efficient way, he was creating more holes. And creating an escape route if he were able to work on it long enough. But Bill opened the window next to this one and with a yardstick, opened the L-shaped flap. With pure luck and no sense of what he was actually doing the woodpecker flew to freedom. Hallelujah.