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Bird Work

I have a pear tree outside my kitchen window that blooms every year but has never produced any fruit. When we first moved in over a decade ago, the top branches of the tree were below my eye level. Now they are higher than the second floor windows. A few months ago, I noticed concentric bands on holes in its bark and a friend told me it was the work of a wood-pecker. Since then I have been keeping an eye out to see this wood-pecker. In the last few days, I have seen the bird almost every morning. It works around the periphery methodically but does not make any noise. 

It is much smaller bird than I expected - the small gray kind. Not the pileated woodpecker that I have seen before. The bird works on the tree for a bit and then disappears. The same routine follows the next day. I keep track of the bird on the weekends but am not around the rest of the week. It made me think that the bird and I are not that different. It plugs away at the tree, gathering food each day. I plug away at my work which involves a computer for reasons that are not so different from that of the gray woodpecker. I don't know whose life is more complicated.

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