??!! Edwin, The Fearless Sidewalk Pecker!
posted by on June 20 at 13:37 PM
It is true that the wild kingdom, in its infinite versatility, has found clever ways to exist in the ever-encroaching face of humankind. I can’t think of any right now, except for maybe these South African monkeys that have learned to break into people’s houses and raid their refrigerators or something that I saw on the Discovery Channel (the species we encroach upon just die, mostly), but hang in there with me for a moment, for I am about to amaze you with the tale of Edwin! The Fearless Sidewalk Pecker!
Edwin (who I named myself, so shutthefuckup) is a marvel of evolution—-an urban dwelling badass birdy that has bested the advance of man. How you ask? Well. Edwin, commonly known as a “woodpecker”, has somehow, in a fit of genetic ingenuity or madness, learned to peck the sidewalks instead of the wood! Check it out:
Just yesterday, I was walking on Bellevue Ave. E., just about a block south from Top Pot, when I was startled by the sight of what was clearly a woodpecker. But this was clearly no ordinary woodpecker. (Oh, no!) This woodpecker was a woodpecker completely at odds with the laws of God and its own nature. Indeed, this little bird was remarkable for a few reasons. First, he was on the ground, not in a tree or in the sky, and he wasn’t afraid of me one tiny little bit. Indeed, all natural avian apprehension had vanished utterly—-and what’s more skittish than a bird? I ask you. I was roughly two feet away from the damned beaked thing, and instead of spazing out and taking to the sky as all natural-hearted birds are compelled to do, Edwin, the Sidewalk Pecker, just looked at me like I was a dork. Also, Edwin (so named by me on the spot, because, well, he just looked like an Edwin, trust me on this), pecked not wood, as you might have suspected, but sidewalk. Sidewalk! He found soft spots and crevices to peck his pecker at, and his shtick went something like this: Peck, peck peck! (Look at Adrian like he’s a dork.) Peck, peck, peck! (Look at Adrian like he’s a dork.) And soon, a small crowd had gathered—-seven people in all—-to marvel with me at little Edwin, the saucy fearless woodpecker who thinks I’m a dork and pecks the sidewalk instead.
Now what do you make of that crazy shit?
I sincerely doubt he was a full-on woodpecker. Probably he was a flicker. And I think what you're probably describing is a thing flickers do where they tear out the dirt in cracks in the sidewalks to get at the ant nests that are buried in there. You've seen those weird creepy explosions of tiny brown ants that burst of cracks in sidewalks and parking lots when the weather turns warm? Those things are total buffets for flickers.
edwin, the fearless sidewalk flicker?
Edwin, The Fearless Sidewalk Pecker sounds a hell of a lot cooler than The Flicker.
You're a dork.
A Flicker is a Woodpecker:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flicker_%28bird%29
edwin, the sidepeck walking flickwooder!
or, edwood, the peckflick...
never mind!
Thus the phrase "not a full-on woodpecker".
See, that's shorthand for, "It's a woodpecker, but it's not one of the two birds that are normally identified simply as 'woodpeckers'. Rather, it's a smaller less dramatically colored member of the woodpecker family which is generally called a 'flicker'. Not, you will understand, a 'flicker woodpecker.'"
Sorry if that was confusing for anyone besides matt.
It wasn't.
The famous of all woodpeckers is Woody, known to peck through anything made of wood.
So if it's a woodpecker that doesn't peck wood but instead pecks asphalt shouldn't his name be Assy?
Yes, but I doubt it was a flicker. Adrian identified as a woodpecker, right? And flickers don't actually look like woodpeckers are imagined to look (i.e. they don't have red top-knots and black-and-white coloring). So unless you happen to know a bit about bird taxonomy, you wouldn't see a flicker doing something un-woodpeckerish and conclude, "hey, that's a woodpecker." Whatever.
It heightens the mystery though. Assuming it was a hairy or downy woodpecker (no jokes, please -- both are possible species in that part of Cap Hill), it's hard to know why it would be pecking at the sidewalk.
Woodpecker? Bellevue Ave East? Top Pot? Dork looking? You call him Edwin? Euphemism?
He was probablly just looking for a little fun, some companionship, maybe, sure he was just trying to feed himself, who doesn't work it to put food in the belly, but taking it to the street does take courage.
Judah
I suggest you take an entry-level course in logic. "Not a full-on" implies that it is partially a woodpecker. Like some sort of hybrid, as in a "peekapoo" is not a "full-on" poodle because it is half pekingnese.
Or it implies a lack -- as in FTMs are not a "full-on" man because they are not genetically male.
It was probably a flicker eating ants, one of their favorite foods.
#13, that doesn't explain why Adrian would think it was a woodpecker.
Again, flickers don't look like woodpeckers are "supposed" to. He would have just thought: "hey, that's a bird on the sidewalk."
So I hear Adrian's a fuckin' dork...
Judah,
There aren't only "two birds normally identified as woodpeckers", there are many. And flickers are relatively large woodpeckers, not "smaller".
matt, I suggest you bite me.
Flickers aren't full-on woodpeckers because they're smaller and their coloring is less dramatic than the birds most people think of when they think of a woodpecker. In that regard, they are "less than" what most people imagine when they use the word "woodpecker."
Jesus. When you're done biting me I suggest you take an intro course in linguistics.
I can't believe you are fighting about woodpeckers. I am going to join though - this is fun.
Flickers are as woodpecker as any woodpecker, they are actually pretty big (i think the only bigger ones around here are pileated woodpeckers). They are pretty obviously woodpeckers (even to people that aren't bird geeks) becuase they are almost always pecking the way woodpeckers do. There is always one by my house pecking on the roof or near the sidewalk and my bird-ignorant friends always say, "wow what a cool looking woodpecker."
Really, lanik? "Pretty obviously"? I don't think so.
Adrian wrote: "the sight of what was clearly a woodpecker."
Okay, if it were in a tree pecking, then you wouldn't have to be a bird geek to ID it as a woodpecker of some kind. But if it's behaving really strangely -- i.e. standing on the sidewalk -- I seriously doubt that a non-bird-geek would assume it was definitely a woodpecker.
But Adrian can clear it up: what did it look like?
I was there. I can verify it was a woodpecker and not a FLICKER.
It's a confused woodpecker. Throughout his life he was scorned and ridiculed by all of the other woodpeckers, but the Flickers accepted him for who he truly was deep down inside: Edwin, The Fearless Sidewalk Pecker! Can we agree on that? Consensus?
Adrian, was there any sap coming out of the sidewalk at all, because, you know, maybe it was a yellow-bellied sapsucker, which is, you know, kind of a sort of lesserish woodpecker, too.
http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/site/resizedImages/yellow-bellied-sapsucker-82.jpg
I just took some pictures of a flicker the other day, he was standing in my driveway pecking ants out of a crack in the pavement.
Flickers may not look just like woodpeckers but they certainly look like they belong to the woodpecker family.
i have a headache. let's all go watch a pretty sunset.
what am i saying? FUCK SUNSETS!
Are you sure it wasn't a sunrise? Because they can look pretty similar to the untrained eye.
What direction was it coming from?
Midgets aren't full-on humans because they're smaller and their coloring is less dramatic than the humans most people think of when they think of a human.
how much wood would a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker could peck...concrete!
hey, everyone? It's a fucking bird with a specialized beak that friggin' PECKS!!
I thank you all for the devolved conversation, but can we get on with how stoned adrian was!
Thank you.
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