Woody Wood Pecker

Woody has been visiting our house lately.  We will be sitting down to breakfast or dinner and hear a sudden hammering noise coming down our chimney. Thwak! Thwak! Thwak! Thwak! It's Woody!  I always thought wood peckers were eating bugs with there constant pecking but apparently this one is trying to build a nest on our roof.  For awhile we would go outside and lob pieces of gravel up at Woody trying to scare him away from our house.  Hopefully he would go pick on someone else.  But he seems to be just as persistent as we are with the happenings on our roof.   

Zach borrowed Nick's BB gun this past weekend and now it's a game of whits.  Like his father, a.k.a "Elmer Fudd", Zach silently sneaks out of the house when we hear Woody at work.  He tip toes over to a spot where he can see him and then he get's into position.  Lucy and I watch from inside only to see him shouting "S*!?" after another miss, stomping his feet, promising he isn't going to miss next time.  He checks his gun for any malfunctions on it's behalf and then sulks inside swearing to get it next time. 

I was excited at first thinking this might be a good way to scare Woody off our roof.  It seemed like a harmless game.  Then Zach explained to me it wasn't like the gravel that would just bother him, that the BB would most likely stop Woody from nesting ANYWHERE.  Now I oddly find myself on Woody's side.  I don't find a need to kill him because he's doing his natural job.  Not his fault that we happen to have a good looking roof.  No, I'm thinking of other ways to help him set-up, maybe on a nearby tree.  Today, I'll be looking into fake owls to give him another clue that even if my husband keeps missing, Woody isn't wanted on our roof.  And...I think we are going to have to stop calling him a "he" because most likely if Woody is making a nest it should be, Mrs. Woody.