I heard the woodpecker long before I saw him... and that's hardly surprising. Pileated Woodpeckers, our largest local members of the bird family Picidae, are loud, with a wall-penetrating call that I've always heard as "Ick... Ick... Ick"—although some birders transliterate the notes as "Ack" or "Eck." Whatever the preference, the crow-sized bird was making a racket, so I grabbed the dSLR, quickly put on the Sigma supertelephoto, and parked myself by the kitchen window. The supposed model for Woody Woodpecker—actually, Woody was based mostly on the Acorn Woodpecker, not the Pileated—inched his way around the maple tree and headed down for the suet. These amazing birds spend most of their days hacking out large chunks of wood in an ongoing search for their favorite food, Carpenter Ants. But calories are calories, and all the better to get them with very little effort. The Pileated was not about to turn down a free meal. Suet's not as cheap as it used to be, but I'd say I got adequately paid back.