(First posted in March 2004)
Our doorknocker is made of iron, painted red and shaped like a woodpecker. It requires a bit of effort to move but produces a resonant knock. I have concerns that it may be sending the wrong message.
When we first moved into our house, we were thrilled to discover woodpeckers visited frequently. I spotted several pileated woodpeckers making their way up and down nearby trees. And when James and I saw a Northern Flicker alight on one of the beams extending out the front of our house we were so excited we rushed out and bought some binoculars.
Turns out we didn’t need them. Flick, as we began to call him, moved into the snug area between a ceiling beam and the roof. Every night we got a close-up of his rather large butt as it hung over the edge. He left copious droppings on the deck, but this was okay with us. After all, we’d moved from the city to this wooded area so we could get closer to nature.
Unfortunately, Flick wasn’t content with simply perching on the beam. He decided to excavate a hole, perhaps because his bum was getting cold hanging out there all night. We awoke every morning to find wood chips joining the droppings all over the chairs and deck. Oh well, we thought. At least no one can see the hole because it’s on top of the beam, which extends from the highest point of the roof, at least 16 feet above the deck.
Then Flick’s sex drive began to stir. This led him to fly to the top of the house each morning at around 6:00 a.m. where he perched on top of the metal chimney and began to drum. The sound reverberated through the house, as though that one-armed drummer from Def Leppard was up there practicing solos. This racket was meant to get girls.
It worked. Soon there were overheated flickers everywhere.
We tried to support the happy couples. Risking life and limb and a fight, we put up a flicker house. When we saw our main man Flick checking it out, James and I hugged like proud parents. But for some reason the new house was found wanting and Flick ended up living on the beam again.
His excavating took on new seriousness and the quantities of wood chips and flicker poop flying from overhead began to worry us. What if Flick drilled right through the beam and our roof caved in? (Our grasp of engineering is obviously tenuous at best. It’s really a miracle that we managed to get that birdhouse into the tree, even crooked as it is). Worse, Flick, kept up his bloody drumming every morning.
Then it happened. I’d been writing and hadn’t really noticed the sound of Flick’s drilling had changed and become less metallic. I went outside to find that Flick had decided it might be easier to drill into that expanse of wood out front, also known as our cedar siding. Our house probably sounded nice and hollow, like a temptingly rotten tree. But there was something wrong with this big tree. Flick could only get so far before hitting the frame of the house. Ever the optimist, Flick just moved to a fresh spot. By the time I got outside, Flick had made about ten holes in the front of the house. Deep holes. Holes that probably dropped the value of our house by half. Our Friend Flicker instantly became Flicker the F#*!r.
From bird loving amateur naturalist, I was transformed into the crazy lady who ran outside every few minutes each morning in her pajamas screaming “Flick! Stop it. Get away! Damn you Flick!” at the top of her voice. James bought a water machine gun and we soaked ourselves several times but never came anywhere near scaring Flick away from the chimney. James installed an exceedingly unattractive piece of ragged blue tarp over the holes in an effort to keep Flick from returning to the job site. But our entire house is made of wood and we were one big tarp-covered, hole studded, target.
Flick moved out of the beam. But he came back every day for some drumming and to peer assessingly at our increasingly ramshackle looking house from nearby trees.
We borrowed a scuba diving suit, stuffed it full of old sweaters, dressed it in old clothes, put a hat on the head and the water machine gun on its lap and left it in a deck chair to frighten him. We replaced the hideous tarp with hung bird netting, a slightly more respectable looking deterrent, over all the exposed areas of the house. And eventually Flick got the message and moved on.
But recently, Flick returned. He’s apparently got a new place, somewhere nearby, but he still finds our chimney irresistable. So every morning I race out of bed to scream up the chimney: “Flick! Damn you!” And every morning he pokes his long-billed head over the edge of the chimney pipe as if to say, “Dude, you should really learn to relax.”