Much fuzz about peckin'

Last summer we experienced a large woodpecker at our summerhouse. My wife's sister got a little bit annoyed because it was peckin' on the tree just out side their bedroom window. I said someting about the extreme good hearing of woodpeckers and that they actually could hear if something was alive in the tree. Of course I was right, as this autumn a large part of that very same tree fell to the ground. Luckily nothing got damaged, but the woodpecker had given his warning: "There is a bad tree in the garden folks!"

Now it turns out that woodpeckers do not peck just for food. Peckin' is away of showing who the best pecker in the wood is. Anything with good resonance works; metal plates, brick walls and even cars. It does not stop there because woodpeckers can also hear sounds from walls, like electric installations and mistakenly regard these as a possible delicacy not yet experienced. Or maybe it is a mere reflection of what a woodpecker said in a comic strip I red once said: "Well do not ask me, all this peckin' stuff has made me stupid!"