Mindfulness of a Black-backed Woodpecker

Allow me to set the scene. Can you call to mind the delightful aroma of balsam needles, perhaps from a Christmas tree you brought into the house or from an experience of walking in a spruce-fir forest? Imagine you're standing in a thick forest of red spruce and balsam fir trees. The trees are growing so close together that the forest understory is a thickly vegetated land of shadows.  The forest floor is covered with moss so thick that every step you take into this northern forest sanctuary feels soft and squishy underfoot like a moist cushion. Welcome to the home of the black-backed woodpecker.

When I spend time in the spruce-fir forests of the Adirondack Park, I’m often on the lookout for a very special bird who reminds me to slow down and pay attention to the intricate details of nature's beauty and complexity. My every encounter with the rare and illusive black-backed woodpecker feels like a gift.

My most recent encounter with this wild neighbor happened while I was participating in the Saranac Lake Christmas Bird Count at the Bloomingdale Bog January 2, 2022. My friend Joan and I managed to locate a male as well as a female of this species. 

For several minutes we watched each woodpecker. My experience tells me that if we had the time, we could have made ourselves nice and comfy in a couple of folding lawn chairs observing each of these birds in this same patch of forest, perhaps working the same tree, for an hour or more. In December of 2019 I had the good fortune of spending 45 minutes watching one woodpecker work a single tree that it remained on after I left. 

The black-backed woodpecker's methodical foraging technique reminds me to slow down and exercise mindfulness in my forest saunters. To notice lichens on trees. To feel moss underfoot. To smell the intoxicating aroma of fresh balsam needles. To listen to the sound of a thousand little things as life happens in the boreal forest. Yes, the forest speaks to those who will listen.

While they make slow progress compared to other woodpecker species like the downy who seems to be always on the move, black-backed woodpeckers make quick work of extracting a beetle larva when a beetle larva is found. These wild neighbors are gifted with the patience of a surgeon and a powerful chisel of a beak. There’s a certain finesse that’s coupled with its power. I recall watching one black-backed woodpecker delicately pluck a tuft of beard lichen and gently drop it to the ground just before whacking the trunk of a fir tree so hard that flakes of bark shot off and landed 10 feet away from the tree’s base!

The next time you’re in the spruce fir forest in New York’s Adirondack Park, be on the lookout for the black-backed woodpecker; a bird that may inspire you to slow the pace and exercise mindfulness during your next walk in the woods.