Headmaster's Weekly Newsletter -- Week 30

Spring is here. The crocuses and early tulips and daffodils are adding a splash of colour to the fresh green of our fields. More and more students are spending free time outside and the happy shouts and laughter of teenagers at play fill the campus throughout the day. It is a joyful kind of music.

 

There are other sounds too. The campus is alive with birdsong. Beyond the usual caws of our resident black birds, we have barred owls and starlings and robins, bald eagles and Canada geese, a delightful pair of mallards making their home on Turtle and Long Pond, and a yellow-bellied sapsucker that brings me no end of amusement. Blessed with the best name of pretty much any creature in the animal kingdom, this yellow-bellied sapsucker has made the entire campus his home (aka “territory”) with a unique technique.

 

You see, yellow-bellied sapsuckers are like woodpeckers in that they tap trees. Unlike woodpeckers which bore big holes looking for bugs, the sapsuckers tap horizontal lines in their trees, and then lick the sap which oozes forth. They will return to these trees and eat the bugs which have been attracted to the sap. In the spring, like woodpeckers, sapsuckers will arrive early to their chosen spot and tap as loudly as they can to establish their territory and attract a mate.

 

Which brings me to our resident bird.

 

This gorgeous little guy has discovered that if he rat-a-tat-taps on the metal traffic sign by Vair MacLellan House the acoustics are such that the sound is amplified throughout the campus. It is incredibly loud! Any competitor for his territory must think he is the biggest and scariest bird ever and stay away. Any female suitor for his love would no doubt be very impressed. Clearly this strategy is a success because each spring he signals his return with this cacophony.