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About 2pm I went out to my vegetable garden here in central Wolfvlle to plant my lettuce "patch", the ground for which I had prepared last evening. I had just started filling the rows with good natural rich "stuff" out of the sheep pens when I was startled by a very loud call at the edge of my wooded patch (the east end of my property). It was loud and raucous as in Crow or Raven, but unfamiliar, as I possibly have not heard this bird call even though I have seen it on a number of occasions, although not recently. Looking towards the sound, I could not see it until it swooped down the hill, through the trees and landed on the path out through the woods where it stayed for at least 3 or 4 minutes picking through the leaves and plants for its lunch. My visitor, in a most unexpected habitat, a gorgeous big Pileated Woodpecker! As I said to my gardening neighbour, Margie, "Pinch me, I don't believe this!" She heard its call too, but the fence was in the way, so she could not quite see it. But she has seen them before in Virginia. Yesterday her daughter saw a Cardinal in her mum's yard which ajoins mine. A number of years ago now I saw another one on Hillside Avenue on a telephone pole one morning. I guess this just goes to show how we stereotype where we "expect" to see birds. How many birds do we miss because we "expect?" It is a good thing the bird called, because it was so silent otherwise that I would not have picked up on its presence.
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