I'm jealous, Bruce.

Pileated woodpeckers are one of my favorite birds. They were common in the hills and woods of West Virginia, but are very rare here on the Piedmont of NC. In the nearly 26 years I've lived here, I have seen none and heard one on the Piedmont. There is a housing development on top of the low mountain behind my mother's house in the suburban area of West Virginia where my mother lives and I was raised. Until it went in about 10 years ago, I would sometimes break away from family and climb up into the woods when I was visiting just to sit in the mature woods on the slope to watch and listen for them.

In West Virginia, we sometimes called them Ginseng birds. Ginseng and Pileated's like the same habitat, and in some Native American cultures they are thought of as guardian spirits of the ginseng. We often would hear and see them flashing through the woods when out hunting for ginseng or planting ginseng seeds, in West Virginia and in the mountains here in North Carolina. I particularly miss hearing their calls. Every now and then I'll hear a Flicker and for an instant will actually feel my heart race with excitement until the brain kicks in. (tells you how exciting my life is, eh?) The call of the Flicker is just similar enough....