I was on the ridge this morning admiring the autumn-red leaves of a gum tree, lit up by the rising sun, when a titmouse landed and, fixing his black eye on me, shouted a word in Bird I know — “Snake!” He shouted it so loud you could have heard him down in the yard. And every time he shouted it, he turned first one way on the branch, then the other. And with every turn, he fixed the eye on that side of his head on me. 

A bluebird has been knocking at our door this week — at the glass storm door, that is — and at the transom over the door and the windows nearby.

The red-cockaded woodpecker (RCWO) is a small – cardinal-sized – woodpecker native to eastern pine forests. It once ranged from New Jersey southward to Florida and westward to eastern Texas and portions of Oklahoma and Missouri. The RCWO is dependant upon old growth pine forests, especially longleaf pine.