It flew right past my kitchen window. Its bright red flash caught my eye. I caught my breath, it was so big. Then it landed on a tree on the edge of a patch of undisturbed woods that I had left standing when I built my house. It began to search for dinner. The tree had been searched before, as most of the bark was missing. “Come quickly”! I called my family, not too loudly in case it should hear me through the glass. They came, also searching for dinner, but finding instead a glossy black and white striped woodpecker with a fierce red mohawk on its head. “What is it?” they asked. “I don’t know” I replied, ”but look at it.”. We watched as it hopped to another tree and back, and then took off banking its huge-ness around the corner of the house to the sky.

A day or two later I was still thinking about the bird that took my breath away. I’m not a birder and so that sense of awe had never happened to me before. I’m more of an oh-look-up-in-the-sky-it’s-a-bird, so- ok-now-what type. But I was mystified, so I googled.

A red-headed woodpecker was not it. With that crest it had to be the Red Pileated Woodpecker, very common , and the largest woodpecker in North America at 16-17 inches long. I thought the bird I saw was bigger than that. The pictures of the pileated woodpecker didn’t quite match my memory. The bird I saw had long thick white stripes all the way down its back. Maybe my memory is like those of eyewitness accounts, varying over time. I’m just not sure today what I saw that night.

I am sure about one thing, we never know when the natural world is going to present us with a moment of magic. The world outside our doors is rich with life, but we tend to stay inside and miss the show. There is an entire movement coalesced around the idea of “No child left inside”, and adults need outdoor time as well.

Those of us who live along the Gulf of Mexico know the opportunities a beautiful environment proffers. We need to take care of it all. Even one action to keep our world cleaner helps that beautiful bird survive. Want more like this? Listen to a podcast, click, hear