This is Bird Note.

Ignited by a lightning strike during a summer thunderstorm, a forest fire roars along a mountain slope.

Once the fire runs its course, acres of black and spruce and pines stand silently against the blue sky.

But the silence doesn't last, as evidenced by the drumming of this black-backed woodpecker.

By the next summer, woodpeckers discover the charred forest and the feast it provides.

Flakes of fire-blackened bark rain down, as woodpeckers sidle up the trunks, chipping away for the rewards beneath.

Bark beetles quickly infested the burned trees, and the beetles larvae are now tasty prizes for the woodpeckers.

A black-backed woodpecker nicks the bark, revealing a young insect.

Many woodpeckers are drawn to this insect bonanza, but the black-backed woodpecker, an uncommon resident of northern forests across the continent,

comes closest to being a burnt forest specialist.

With cold black-backed wings, the black-backed woodpecker appears ideally suited for life among the scorched trunks.

It will even form loose nesting colonies in recent burns for the few years of the insect bonanza.

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