Dryocopus pileatus

Earlier this week, I decided to leave my office and take a walk in Pacific Spirit Park - an area that I have frequented since 1973. While Stanley Park is often called the 'Gem of Vancouver', this area by all rights should have at least as great a place in the affection of Vancouver - perhaps its location at the western edge of the city makes it more of a private area for those of us that live on the West side. I strolled through the area, thinking not only about a challenging situation that I faced at work, but also trying to allow the soothing habitat, the sights and sounds, draw off some of the stress - I was deliberately setting myself up to have a cathartic experience though the healing aspects of biophilia (for more check out E.O Wilson http://wilderdom.com/evolution/BiophiliaHypothesis.html), to simply commune with Nature. Once again, the heart rate and breathing slowed down, the head cleared up and I felt a bit more connected and grounded as a result of the walking and taking in the wonderful forest. I started to talk with another man with his dog walking there and he turned out to be the father of a long-time business acquaintance, and again I was struck by how easy it is to connect with other people if we only let ourselves. My First Nations friends and clients talk about their being part of the landscape, inseparable from it, and while we as a society would greatly benefit from that philosophy, another step we need to take is to reconnect with each other, to re-establish a sense of community not only with each other but also with the planet that is our home, and our only home. Towards the end of my walk, I came across a couple of pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus) hard at work. It was the first time that I had ever seen two together at once, working within a metre of each other. The image in this blog and some great information can be found at this lovely website http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Pileated_Woodpecker_dtl.html. I stood there for some minutes, marvelling at how they attacked the tree, looking for insects, and how they walked both forwards and backwards, across and up and down along the trunk. A number of people walked or ran by, oblivious to the birds, despite their loud hammering on the trunk. It struck me that we need to listen, watch and learn more, to focus on being in the moment, and that for me was one such moment. Cheers Paul