Thwack! Another bird strike. So much for the new anti-strike window decals. This one’s landed on its branch-like feet. Motionless. Stunned. Dying? I leave my indoor perch and slowly, carefully venture into the cold; doubting, yet hoping to find signs of life. She is a beauty: a downy woodpecker, with razor-sharp black-and-white stripes, lacking the male’s red dash on the nape. She endures a finger stroke on her tiny, silken head. Moments pass. What could she possibly be thinking? Then, without preamble, she straightens, shakes off her deathly daze, gathers unruly feathers, releases, and takes flight.
Diane Stern, an award-winning Boston radio journalist for 42 years, was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2017. Diane will be reading with Five Minutes and Molecule at the Salem Literary Festival in Massachusetts in September.