The week after Christmas we had a terrible cold spell, accompanied by snow and ice. I was peacefully occupied, putting away Christmas decorations, when I noticed a woodpecker land on the cedar tree just outside the dining room windows and begin to drill holes.
The nerve! That’s a perfectly healthy cedar tree. There are no bugs in that tree! It’s 17 degrees outside … drilling holes (in these conditions!) is sure to put the tree at risk for infection. That woodpecker is going to kill the tree!
Right then and there I decided to wage war on the woodpecker!
I spent the entire rest of the day stomping outside, flailing my arms wildly, scolding severely, and throwing stones. This was a battle of the wills! And I was determined to win!
But no sooner would I step back inside than the woodpecker would return. So, outside I’d stomp all over again … waving my arms wildly, scolding, and throwing stones (which the woodpecker would merely sidestep).
Somewhere in the middle of all this the thought flitted through my mind how the hummingbird feeder kept freezing solid (I had to keep bringing it inside to thaw out). The briefest of thoughts flitted through wondering what the woodpecker might drink if everything was frozen solid.
But no time to worry about such things. There were plenty of other trees in the forest for the woodpecker to drill on. Go drill on those trees! Don’t drill on my cedar tree!
Night came … darkness fell … and the woodpecker was still drilling holes the last I saw before all turned to pitch blackness.
A brand new day.
A fresh start.
Growing daylight on a bitterly cold morning revealed … the woodpecker was still there! The nerve!
I sat at the dining room table to have my breakfast … while directly level with my gaze sat the woodpecker, just outside the window on the perfectly healthy cedar tree.
Deep in my soul I could hear God speak to me … telling me to let it go.
Ok God. I’ll let it go.
As I let it go, much to my surprise I began to notice something I hadn’t noticed before. The woodpecker wasn’t drilling new holes this morning. But rather it was making rounds at each of the holes it had drilled yesterday. That’s curious.
Once again, the thought flitted through my mind wondering what the woodpecker might drink if all the liquid outside were frozen solid. Then the realization slowly dawned on me. The woodpecker wasn’t drilling holes looking for bugs. The woodpecker was drilling holes to access the sap. It was thirsty … and all the other liquid everywhere else was frozen solid.
Where do you go if you want to find out if woodpeckers eat sap? Google … of course. Sure enough, Google verified that woodpeckers do indeed eat sap. Who knew! In fact, this little guy is called a Sap Sucker Woodpecker. Who knew!
That was two weeks ago. The temperatures have warmed back up to normal. The snow and ice have melted, and I haven’t seen the woodpecker since.
Yet a lasting reminder has been forever left behind … a neat little row of holes on the healthy cedar tree just outside my dining room window. A continual reminder to me (whenever I sit down to have breakfast … or lunch … or dinner) that I should not be so hasty at jumping to conclusions … because things aren’t always what they might appear.
