Downy Woodpecker Drama

The week started so well for the downy woodpeckers in the garden. I captured this lovely moment when the mother downy, hardly any bigger than her offspring, carefully feeds him some suet from our feeder. Baby can fly a little but hasn’t quite figured out how to gain entry to the inner sanctum of the squirrel proof “suet palace”.

Things began to go wrong for the family yesterday morning when the mother downy woodpecker ran into the neighbour’s cat. Luckily the neighbour was nearby and rescued her from the jaws of death. Meanwhile the baby downy woodpecker seemed at a loss and was sitting immobile in our lilac tree. We decided to try and reunite them. At first it seemed as if it might be a happy ending. Mom fluttered out of the box the neighbour had put her in, and made in the direction of her baby. Unfortunately it was soon apparent that she couldn’t fly. She did, however, manage to scoot up the lilac tree and even, after a major struggle, get into the suet palace for some food. Darkness was falling and I began to consult my more bird-savvy friends on the best course of action.

The consensus was that the mother woodpecker needed to be rescued because injuries caused by cats almost always become badly infected. Unfortunately she had disappeared into the high branches of the lilac and it was quite dark. Also I worried about what would happen to the baby without his mother. I hadn’t seen any sign of the male parent all week. A wet and fretful night followed, with midnight, 2am, 5am and 7am checks on the stranded birds. As soon as it opened at 8:30am, I called the Wildlife Rescue Association in Burnaby. As I was on the phone to the lovely volunteer there, a miraculous thing happened. The male woodpecker suddenly appeared. It would not in any way be an overstatement to say that their reunion was rapturous. It reminded me of one of the clips at the beginning of the movie “Love Actually” where long separated family and loved ones reunite at Heathrow Airport. Anyway, two good things came out of this. One: there was another parent so junior would not be alone with his mother gone. Two: the female was so exhausted after the excitement of her mate’s return that she fluttered to the ground. My daughter and I had a box and sheet ready and quickly scooped her up.

So now we wait to see if she will make it. I have a case number and will call the rescue people tomorrow to see. If she does recover we can bring her back here to hopefully reunite with her family. If not, at least she’ll have been spared a lot of suffering.