I Hear the Ladder-Backed Woodpecker

It's the sqawks that get my attention in Phoenix.  And the peeps in Prescott.  Every so often it's the rattle or drumming in both places.  But once in a while I hear the long laugh of a bird from high in a tree.  They're all the calls of woodpeckers, but it's only the ladder-backed woodpecker that sounds like he's in this fit of laughter.

While it's the acorn and hairy woodpeckers I see in Prescott, it's the Gila woodpecker and gilded flickers that I usually see in and around Phoenix.  But the ladder-backed appears in both locations:  cool mountain forests in the summer and mild deserts in the winter.  But the species is not migratory like me; instead it's much more tolerant of extremes in climate and will put up with both snow and blistering heat.

It was on a chilly desert morning last weekend when I heard the distinctive cackle of the ladder-backed woodpecker in my Phoenix neighborhood.  I quickly identified two males high in a pine tree, where they were both busy poking through the tree's bark.  It certainly wasn't laughter that I heard - what would be so funny in a bird's desperate life for survival?  But the noise got my attention and let me know exactly who I was hearing before I could see him. 

Male ladder-backed woodpecker in Phoenix.

Male ladder-backed woodpecker in Phoenix.

Male ladder-backed woodpecker in Phoenix.