Marty’s photo of the day #5118: Nellie’s recovery from getting her second bionic rear leg will take at least 8 weeks, so I must restrict her to leash walks to keep her from engaging warp drive too early. Because of that, we are covering every inch of the 25-acre Essen Wildlife Refuge. And since Nellie wants to walk often (including a 4:00 a.m. forest-walk this morning), I’m getting so much exercise.
Those walks are leading me to see landscape features I hadn’t noticed before. They’ve also led to some interesting wildlife observations. We’ve always had pileated woodpeckers around, but—at least to my knowledge—never so many. This morning, Nellie and I were approaching a pileated woodpecker in a tree that was squawking at the top of her lungs. As I aimed my camera, Nellie bolted, yanking the leash and ruining my shot.
Two juvenile pileated woodpeckers were on the ground—15 feet away—picking apart a log and hadn’t noticed the human and dog approaching. Much to the relief of momma pileated woodpecker, the youngsters took to the air.
I shot today’s pileated woodpecker photo a few days ago. At the time, Nellie was trying to pull me to a squirrel she wanted to have a conversation with. Do you know how hard it is to hold a camera steady while restraining a 63-pound bionic dog, who’s convinced she’s healed enough to engage her warp drive?