If you get bad news about one of your trees, kindly don’t shoot the messenger. Even if – especially if – they vandalize that very tree. It could save your life to heed their warning.
Although it’s captivating to watch a big prehistoric-looking woodpecker chisel away at a rotten snag in the forest, the same performance loses its charm when it jack-hammers a hole in your perfectly sound tree. The thing is, no matter how healthy that tree may appear, it is definitely not sound, and may in fact be quite dangerous. Your “vandal” is alerting you to this fact by installing windows in the tree trunk. [Read more…] about Pileated Woodpeckers: Miscreants or Messengers?