Peckin' ...

The Pileated Woodpecker is quite common in the south ...

     Howdy, y’all … I’ve had to lay my sloughstalkin’, fishin’ & hog-huntin’ aside for the past few weeks.  I even stopped doin’ a tactical refurb on my antique Russian semi-automatic carbine, which I’ve been itchin’ to make my new feral hog eradicator.  Reason bein’ … I’ve been busier than a cat tryin’ to cover-it-up on concrete gettin’ our 42-year old house all prettied-up for our son’s high school graduation party.  There’s never a lack of stuff to do on our spread, but my beautiful bride done sweet-talked me into gettin’ my fat-ass into high-gear and knockin’-out a buncha neglected honey-dos.  Even though I did the all the fixin’, repairin’ & sandin’, she’s run circles around me and painted almost every interior base-board, door frame & door, an entire hallway and two bathrooms!  I’ve replaced all the old stuff with all new hardware; door-knobs, hinges etc., and I still have a livin’ room ceilin’ to paint, steam cleanin’ to do and a room full of oak paneling to oil.  And, there’s a bunch of dang yard & garden stuff to jump-on as well.  But in my haste, I forgot to tell y’all about somethin’ that had happened to me as we spent our week in Uncertain Relaxin’ …

 

     I finally got a shot on a particular bird that I’d been tryin’ to get for the last several years.  If any of y’all may recall from an earlier post that I did back in January called Shootin’ Nature … I have been tryin’ like Hell to get a decent photo of a pileated woodpecker.  This may be no big deal to some of y’all, but I ain’t no birdwatcher nor am I by any means a professional wildlife photographer.  It seemed that no matter how much or how hard that I had tried … somethin’ always come up that kept my hapless-ass from gettin’ a decent pic of one!  But while I was out fishin’ one late April mornin’ I finally got an opportunity; and, it wasn’t that dang easy, either!  On that particular mornin’ it was 38° and there was a lake wind advisory on Caddo.  Have any of y’all ever tried to maneuver a boat while standin’ with one foot manipulatin' a foot-controlled trollin’ motor in 20-mph winds while lookin’ up and tryin’ to focus on a movin’ object in a friggin’ tree?  Y'all got all that?  'Cause I been there & done that ... but I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout all those times I was retrievin’ my dang fishin’ lures outta limbs due to my “unique” castin’ (in)abilities!

 



I won't call this my "money shot" due to the twig coverin' its profile.

     This time I was tryin’ to focus on my opus; so, not only was this big, beautiful bird movin’ from branch to branch but it was busy peckin’ … and it definitely didn’t stay still for very friggin’ long!  Even though it was very focused on gettin’ grub, I was tryin’ to focus on it while dodgin’ stumps and tryin’ to steady myself on the bow of my rockin’, rollin' boat in gustin’ conditions.  Thank God I used to surf and skateboard and still have some fairly-good balance … or I might’ve been payin’ for another new Canon PowerShot SX50 and wishin’ I had some dry friggin’ clothes to change into!  And just when I thought I could get a bit closer for a better photo op, it would take-off and fly to another dang Cypress tree.  Comically, what we had here was one persistent pecker-head chasin’ another persistent pecker-head all through the friggin’ swamp!  Like I’ve said, shootin’ nature ain’t easy, and it all depends on the nature of the beast you’re tryin’ to shoot …

 

     I probably only spent a good twenty minutes chasin’ that bird from tree to tree across Turtle Shell.  It finally grew tired of me and disappeared into the distant, dense flooded woods.  And again, out of the 35 or more shots that I was actually able to take … only about a quarter of those were usable, and I really didn’t feel that I got my “money-shot”, either.  But in the sixteen or so years of me tryin’ to get a pic of one of these birds … this was the best opportunity that I had ever had.  Of course, when I’m out sloughstalkin’ or runnin’ ‘round out there in them woods … I’m usually lookin’ for a much larger and much-more elusive kind of critter.  But I’m sure that if I continue to be the persistent little pecker that my wife says that I am, maybe I’ll get a shot of one sometime soon.

 



This was one of the better shots that I got on that unusually cold, windy April day, right before it flew away.

     In the meantime, I’d better stop peckin’ on this-here blog and get back to my honey-dos.  The sooner I finish-up with my chores … the sooner I can continue the tactical mods on my Tula SKS, in which I’ll detail in a couple of upcomin’ entries called Renovatin’.  That’s right; there just might be a part-two, as long as I don’t have catastrophic failure at the range!  Well, I guess that if that were to happen, it would be better to happen there than somewhere out in them woods!  Until then, y’all be safe and take care …