Don't forget the dead woodpecker

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I posted this in my livejournal, but I need all the reminders I can get.I always forget things like this, I need you all to remind me before I leave work-

For lunch I got pizza to go and ate it in the park. I still had the brown paper bag it came in because the park had no garbage can.

I was walking back to work and i found a dead woodpecker, in good condition.
I needed it to preserve it, because I don’t have a woodpecker in my collection yet (when i’m not at work, I’m a taxidermist).
So, where do I put it? In my car? Not bloody likely, seeing as a dead woodpecker sitting in my car for hours when it’s 80 degrees outside could prove to be disastrous.

I put it in my brown paper bag, then labeled the bag “Becky’s Pizza- Do not touch” and put it in the freezer downstairs in the breakroom.

Now, I must remember to take that woodpecker home TODAY, because i put my name on the bag and they will all know it’s me if somebody tries to clean out the freezer (I put today’s date on it) or if someone thinks it’s a good idea to steal somebody else’s lunch- they will get a sackful of dead woodpecker and i will be in big trouble.

I am afraid I will forget that i put a dead woodpecker in the office freezer and someone will find it down the line.
I shudder to think of the consequences.

Any reminders would greatly be appreciated, especially around 6:00 pm EST, right before I leave here. Go ahead and e-mail me.

2

Okay.

3

Well, did you remember it?

I would’ve reminded you, but you being an [expletive deleted] east-coaster, I’m an hour late. :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Hey, don’t sweat it: woodpeckers adapt very easily. I once saw on TV a woodpecker get stuck in a fridge. He pretended to be a ketchup bottle, and then when someone took him out and tried to pour him, he pecked the guy’s nose and…What’s that, sweetie?

Oh. Sorry, that wasn’t a wildlife special, that was a cartoon. What? No, she’s not going to lance him, she’s going to…Oh. Lantz.

Carry on. I guess I’m all wrong about penguins, too.

5

If someone came to me and said, “Goddamn it, I was stealing someone else’s lunch out of the refrigerator and – guess what? – instead of a tasty slice of pizza, there was a goddamned dead woodpecker in the bag. I want you to issue them a reprimand”, I wouldn’t have much sympathy. And he wouldn’t have much of a future in that job.

6

Thank you Trisha, that worked really well.

The sad part is, on monday afternoon, I was eating in the park and enjoying the nice weather and the flowers and bumblebees, etc- and I saw a woodpecker flitting from tree to tree and being very thorough about his work.

I was charmed by him.

The next day i found a dead woodpecker in that same park. Hmmm…

Now he sits forlornly in a jar of rubbing alcohol, awaiting his eternal non-life.

Maybe it was paranoid to fear that someone would examine my lunch and tattle.
If I had found a dead woodpecker in a bag at work I would
have been delighted.

7

You’re welcome. :slight_smile:

8

We’ve had about 30 dead warblers (various species) in our office refrigerator (freezer). We had to collect them after a few hundred ran into a local communications tower during migration: guess who got to wrap them up in foil.

I’ve had a dead pelican packed in ice under my desk, waiting for the courier service to ship it to the necropsy lab.

The raptor clinic has a freezer full of carcasses of birds that just didn’t make it (most get shipped off the one of the national repsoitories), not to mention the freezer full of various fish and rodents for the birds’ meals. (And a separate refrigerator for human food, of course).
So what kind of woodpecker is it?

9

Oh, screech-owl, I’m so embarrassed!

I searched and searched and I can’t find any picture of it ANYWHERE!
I definitely know it’s NOT a flicker…

I think it was female, because it only had a small red stripe on its head instead of a big red, triangular mowhawk-type thing that the males have. It was black and white spotted, small, maybe 6 inches?

Your office is quite different from mine. I think it would be funny if someone there were to attempt to steal somebody’s else’s woodpecker in a paper bag and then their jaw drops in horror to find that the bag contains pizza.

10

Since I do bird ID over the phone, why should the computer be different?

Okay, a couple of possibilities:

You’ve definitely discounted the Common Flicker (aka Yellow-shafted Flicker), right. Whoops, they are 12-14"

Skimming though my field guides, (I’m not yet versed in woodpeckers), the Pileated and the Ivory-billed have the ‘Woody Woodpecker’ crest (both the males and females have a crest - male and female Pileated and the male Ivory-billed have red crests, the female Ivory-billed has a black crest). Disregard these, as they are 16-20". And if you had a Ivory-billed, you’d be pretty darned famous - last one seen in the US was what, about 1970s?

If you are saying about 6", likely it could be a Downy Woodpecker - it has a white back, and the wings are checkered and spotted black and white. It is nearly identical (white facial stripes, dark tail with white outer feather, white belly) to the Hairy Woodpecker, except for the fact that it [DW] is small [6’], and has a small bill whereas the HW is larger (about 9.5") and has a longer bill.

If you say it has a red stripe across the back of the head/neck, you have a male of either of these two species. Females have a black head with a white stripe running through and below the eye.

Now, if you have underestimated the size, it is possible you have a female Red-bellied Woodpecker - these are about 9-10", have a white belly (do not ask me why they are called Red-bellied - I’ve yet to see one with a red belly), and horizontal stripes across the back and most of the wing, about 1/2 the wing being solid black with a white patch. The male has a red cap extending from the beak to the back of the neck, whereas the female has a splotch of red just across the back of the neck.

Good luck with the ID. I don’t know a lot about taxidermy, but please make sure you have the proper permits: these may be covered under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act or other laws (my statute book is missing).

And I just had a Common Yellowthroat smack into the glass window. Bummer.

11

That reminds me . . . I have a road-killed marmoset and a cuckoo in my freezer that I have to remember to bring over to the University Museum.

Actually, in the hand they have a faint wash of red - actually more pink - on the belly, but it’s pretty hard to see in the field. But it’s a crumy name.

12

So Screech-Owl, can you ID a bird for me? I’ve been looking, but I can’t find a picture of it. I’m not really a bird-watcher, but these birds are beautiful. They are some kind of heron. They are feeding on crawfish in the little pond here at work. I’m in Houston, Texas. They are grayish, with long yellow legs. They have some kind of light yellow or off-white long plumage on their heads, that lays back and down, not upright. They have kind of a black mask over their eyes. They move really slowly, stalking the mighty crawfish. They’re really fascinating to watch.
I’d guess they were 1-1/2 to 2 feet tall.

Any clue?

(Sorry, but I don’t have any WHOLE dead animals in my freezer.)

13

DC

Gimme a chance to look that one up.
I’m rearranging the library and haven’t gotten to Texas yet (two shelves away).

14

Sounds like a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron to me.

15

That’s it Colibri! Now I can impress my friends with my knowledge! Thanks so much.

16

Well, I finally got to Texas, and Colibri’s right.

Thanks for the clarification on the red-belly. Never had one in hand.
Which University?

17

Dolores, your fellow Texans (or at least imported Louisianians like myself) are more likely to recognize your birds as grosbecs <grow-beks>. That’s what we called them where I grew up. Every few years, some idiot redneck would get arrested for shooting one or more.

18

How could this thread go for so long without a “stiff pecker” joke?! Gah! I’m embarrased for the lot of you!

(Sigh) I guess I must take it upon myself…

**'Turp one day found a stiff pecker,
while eating lunch in town.
Long and stiff and ramrod straight,
and sporting a bright red crown.

Now nobody loves a pecker like 'Turp.
So to conceal it from prying eyes
she stuffed into a brown paper bag
so on one would steal her prize.

Excited, she took that pecker home.
But soon would come her downfall,
For she made the mistake of introducing that pecker
to a bottle of alcohol.

'Cuz nothing works better than spirits
for making a pecker slack.
So she stuffed it full of cotton fluff
and mounted it on a plaque.
**

Good enough for a rush job…

19

I left that empty space afterwards so you could draw a picture if you wanted…

20

Inky-:

  1. You are one sick puppy.
  2. You owe me a can of Coke
  3. You can march right over here and clean my monitor.

In any case, I enjoyed your poem (but not the nasalization) very much so.