(Editor's Note: Michael Givant is a resident of Woodbury and an associate professor of sociology at Adelphi University.)

It's a sunny cool mid-April morning on the Greenbelt trail in Woodbury, now called Trail View State Park. Three yellow-shafted male flickers, striking woodpeckers, are flying playfully from tree to tree. Morning sun highlights their bright red caps and the black streaks on the side of their faces. Their plump, black-dotted, leopard-like bellies shine in the crisp spring air. Their bright yellow fantails look as delicate as Chinese porcelain. When they look up, their necks appear soft as suede. Looking like an ornament, one with coal black eyes, is perched in the broken V of a tree. They are so beautiful, I feel like a voyeur.

Walking on, I hear the unmistakable tapping of a woodpecker. The sound is off to the left, near the trees. Walk very quietly, I tell myself, a loud noise will scare it off. Stealthily, I walk off the trail following the sound. Walk softly, I tell myself, we're really close now. I'm practically on top of the tree that I think it's in. Nothing's there! What's going on? Beyond the tree is a parking lot whose perimeter is lined with trees. The sound seems to be coming from there. There's a female downy or hairy woodpecker high up on a tree trunk, but the bird is too small for the loud sound that I heard.

I suddenly see the source of the sound. It's a flicker, in a nearby tree. Is this one of the flickers that I saw before? Before I can decide, I see a male red-bellied woodpecker in an adjacent dead tree. There's a freshly bored nest hole in the tree's trunk and it wasn't made by Home Depot. This is the mating season when pairs select a nest site. By Father's Day there may be fledglings in the nest in that hole. The male red-bellied woodpecker, now in the tree, is sticking his red-capped head in and out of the hole as if he were a cuckoo clock.

A female red-bellied woodpecker suddenly lands on the tree. The male comes out to join his mate. They perch on the tree. Looking very closely I can see the marks just below the hole where one or both of them used a toehold to peck away at the tree trunk. The male, perhaps tired from his exertion in nest building, goes back into the hole. The female takes a run at the flicker who flies off. This is clearly a territorial claim.

I've got to clearly mark the spot so I can show it to my wife. If I don't, when we come back, finding the hole will be like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Finding some yellow plastic auction tape, I tie it around a clump of tall dead grass. I make a notation, "@11:00 o'clock, 1-1/2 feet from the top of the sawed off tree." Walking back onto the trail, I carefully mark the spot where I need to turn off; I look back and see the yellow stripping. There should be no trouble finding this spot again.

Walking back, I see some woodpeckers fly between the trees and disappear. Just then a red-tailed hawk appears, gliding low and sideward in a sky where rain clouds are being chased by a stiff breeze. The woodpeckers have probably seen it and the woods are silent as the hawk flies across the road out of sight. I feel relieved.

One drizzly morning last week, I returned by car not expecting to see much, if anything. My wife and I had been to the woodpecker site one afternoon, a week after I had found them and saw nothing. I now was shocked to see that the trees, which had been barren in early spring had all grown lush with foliage. There was also vegetation on the ground which had grown above the hood of a car. Finding the nest hole would be impossible; the vegetation had covered my marker.

Going to the approximate place of my marker I saw the hole in plain sight. The great bird god in the sky was surely smiling on me today. I waited patiently in the drizzle about 10 minutes when the male stuck his red-capped head out and slowly went back in. It looked like a lazy day for him, I assumed that I was not going to be seeing my woodpeckers walking on the tree trunk or flying today. Guess again.

A little later my guy sticks his head out again, looks down and around. He twice emits the trademark, soft gurgling call of the red-bellied woodpecker. Are you calling your mate? I've got an overwhelming feeling that I'll see both. A few minutes later he makes another appearance, this time opening his bill. Getting hungry? Suddenly there's a form on the tree trunk.

I struggle to hold my notebook and get my rain-splattered binoculars on the tree trunk. It's the female! There's a silky, moderate red spot on the back of her head. At the base of her bill there is a light orange mark. She is sedately beautiful. The male flies out. Is it her turn to sit on eggs that may be incubating or is he going out for some insects to feed chicks that he was minding?

She bends her back and pokes her head through the hole several times but doesn't go in. Instead she circles around to the back of the tree perhaps to look for predators and finally goes into the hole. Over the next 20 minutes she sticks her head out a few times and actually flies out of the hole twice only to come quickly back. This bird is no stay-at-home mom. During this time I go to my car, several feet away, to get my scope and set it up to see her more closely.

A head peeps out of the hole, but it's the male! I must have been distracted when the switch was made. Soon his head is out again and he emits two soft gurgles. He's calling for her. His head looks so soft I'd like to just reach out and pet him. Once he comes out on the tree trunk, opens his bill slightly and I think I see his tongue flick out for just an instant. The next time he sticks his head out, gurgles and he's outta there. The female comes back a minute later, lands on the trunk, looks skyward and finally goes into the hole. She has a placid demeanor, an eye that seemed coal black now appears to have a reddish hue, two strong black toes of her wiry feet are on the edge of the hole's rim. Her soft tan face seems to blend so well with the exposed wood just below the hole. If I were a male red-bellied woodpecker I'd be smitten with her.

I've been here over two hours and decide to leave. While packing up I notice that she's stuck her head out again, seemingly in response to a soft gurgling noise. So the male has landed on the trunk and she flies, her wings rotating like twin airplane propellers, raising her above the tree line of the Greenbelt Trail.

What did I get for my efforts? Approximately two dozen separate views of the woodpeckers and some lovely looks at a variety of birds, including house sparrows collecting nest material and two mourning doves in what may have been a courtship display. I've been engaged with the two woodpeckers to the exclusion of the rest of the world and watched the involvement of wet leaves in the rain; the whites of new growth; spring green vegetation and dark greenery under a subtle gray sky. There were long moments of a complete lack of self-awareness and other moments of being at one with nature that brought a heightened sense of aliveness. And a place to which to bring my wife, where she'll see everything that I did.