As if we seniors don’t have enough to awaken us at night, at 5 AM a red-bellied woodpecker started drumming on the gutter. Rat-a-tat-tat. It’s like having a miniature jackhammer right outside your window. Mating season, they say. This little fellow is trying to impress his lady love by making a racket. Even earplugs would surrender to this noise. One moment you’re dreaming of peace, the next you’re jolted awake, thinking you’re under attack by a maniac wielding a Tommy Gun.
I adore that feathery rascal—during the day. His daytime churr-churr is charming. But at dawn? Oh boy. Hubby and I have watched him build nests in three trees on the west side of our apartment. We thought he was a regular Casanova, but turns out, that woodpeckers are usually monogamous. Maybe he’s showing off different floor plans to woo his mate: ranch, tri-level, two-story. Or maybe he’s got separate rooms in each tree—a bedroom, nursery, and a den. I’m no expert on woodpecker real estate.
Whatever, he’s a cute little critter during the day. I just wish he’d change his mating time.
He’s not the first critter to turn our home into a love nest. Back at our old house, a flicker used our chimney flue to broadcast his mating call. He’d perch on the flue, flapping his wings at dawn, rattling the chimney cover. At first, we thought the cover was loose. But nope, it was our feathered friend looking for a sweetheart. Bird watcher’s General Store claims the flicker’s saying, “Honey, I’m home.” (1)
My limited research suggests that red-bellied woodpeckers prefer gutters and flickers prefer chimneys. I bet some scientist could get a huge government grant to study the noise-making preferences of horny male woodpeckers.
Thankfully, we don’t have a screech owl squawking nearby. Remember the scene from My Cousin Vinny? Vinny, desperate for sleep, gets a rude awakening from a screech owl at 2 AM. (2) I’m also glad we don’t have a neighbor like Travis Kissire, a June 4 Jeopardy contestant, who built a screech owl nest and has a nesting pair of owls each year. Could his neighbors sue him for disturbing the peace?
Then there are mockingbirds. Noisy little critters. Some people are annoyed by the mockingbird’s routine, but I enjoy their performances. Our Florida mockingbirds don’t have as many songs as my favorite critter in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Each morning on my way to the fitness center I’d hear him sing a 20 - 30 song symphony. At least the mockingbirds have the courtesy to limit their concerts to normal waking hours.
Did you know some bird calls can hit a deafening 100 decibels – as loud as a jet engine takeoff? (3) Human conversation is 70 decibels, although many seniors probably are louder so their friends can hear them. Still, the loudest bird is always the one squawking outside your bedroom window at 3 AM.
Birds, however, have a muscle that contracts to protect them from their own noise. Also, birds' inner ears are more resistant to damage than mammals. Birds can regenerate the hair cells needed for hearing. This suggests another area of scientific study: could inner ear transplants from birds restore human hearing?
We’ve had our share of furry alarm clocks, too. Cats. Our first cat had a foolproof wake-up method. She’d start with gentle paw taps on our faces and, if that failed, she’d stick her muzzle in our ears and breathe heavily. No one could sleep through that! After three cats, we got an automatic feeder. Now, I occasionally hear the recording of hubby’s voice saying, “Casey, time for breakfast.” Usually, I sleep through it.
Human alarms can be just as bad. The other morning at 5 AM a noisy landscaper’s cart drove by our window on the way to the dumpster. Several times. Just as I’d doze off, the cart roared by for another trip.
Finally, everyone knows the people who make smoke alarms have programmed them to go off at 2 AM. Admit it. I bet your smoke alarm has never gone off during waking hours. And you can’t ignore it. You have to get up in the middle of the night, find the batteries, and replace them to stop the squawking. Even the trick of replacing the batteries when the time changes doesn’t always work. The battery life is cunningly designed to be one day less than the number of days between time changes.
One friend who has those middle-of-the-night wake-up calls solved. She removes her hearing aids and can’t hear a thing. She even uses this trick when her hubby starts lecturing her. If only our ears were like woodpeckers’ ears, automatically shutting off middle-of-the-night squawkers and noisy landscapers but still hearing the important stuff. I guess for safety's sake we’d still need to hear the smoke alarm. Oh well, like Meatloaf says, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”
I suppose I should be grateful that I can still hear the woodpeckers, mockingbirds, and screech owls that go squawk in the night.
Epilogue
On June 12, 2024, Ana Jonas, our famous resident bird-watcher passed away while on a birding trip in Alaska. Ana was full of energy and developed a love of birds after retiring. I didn't know her well, but I instantly loved her when she was dancing by herself at one of our music events. See her pic in Dancing with Myself. Also, see a newscast featuring Ana on our local NBC News. I'm glad her last days on earth were spent doing what she loved.
References
https://www.birdwatchersgeneralstore.com/flickers-on-chimnies/
Margin Walker, Screech owl scene from My Cousin Vinny, YouTube,
Christine Cockey, Loud Birds, Science Fun, August 1, 2.016
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