It is a rare day at the lake when I don’t hear a pileated woodpecker and its partner.
What is also rare is to actually see one of these large and secretive birds.
Then today, after seeing not one, but two, I found out that I have been repeating a myth about these birds:
I had thought the cartoon character Woody the Woodpecker was modeled on a pileated woodpecker.
Alas, I was wrong. The real bird was an acorn woodpecker.
See the NPR story at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101665227
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