Woodpeckers' welcome mat is whisked away

The first clue was a pile of wood shavings on the front porch of our 100-year-old Victorian foursquare in St. Paul. From there, our eyes gazed up at the fluted columns that hold up the porch roof.

Fist-sized holes had been neatly chiseled way up near the pillars' Doric caps. Cool, I said, woodpeckers foretelling a particularly frozen winter.

Not cool, according to my wife, Adele: "We have to do something."

And the great woodpecker debate was underway. At least we assumed we were talking about woodpeckers -- unless sparrows or mice had rented a little jackhammer somewhere.

So with the "Lion King" drumbeat echoing in my head, I argued we had become first-hand witnesses to the circle of life. The holes were not exactly compromising the structural integrity of the house. And maybe we'll have baby woodpeckers in the spring. Who knows, I mused, perhaps it's the extinct ivory-billed woodpecker lost on the comeback trial.

Adele had a different view. She saw the house tumbling out over the dormant garden and onto the cobblestones of Osceola Avenue.

While I believed the woodpecker was valiantly seeking shelter for his family, Adele had visions of termites, lots of termites -- or ravenous ants or other hungry bugs. The woodpecker had drilled for food, she insisted, not shelter. And that was trouble. Crawling trouble.

Adding to the intrigue was the pest control guy we'd recently inked to a quarterly deal, primarily for mouse control. He'd sprayed something that might have prompted the bugs to pack up and move into the columns, sparking the rat-a-tat of the woodpecker we still hadn't seen or heard. He, like us, must work the day shift on the circle of life.

A trip to the hardware store brought at least a temporary peace. The experts in the red vests urged us to put steel wool into the holes and hang mirrors around to freak out the birds with the Black and Decker beaks. Another expert pooh-poohed the mirror tip for a cheaper, more practical solution.

And that's why we have old shiny CDs dangling from the hanging-plant hooks on our porch, prompting weird looks from our neighbors -- at least when they're not checking their own porches' column tops for fist-sized holes from woodpeckers seeking new accommodations. As if the guy in the Volvo with the binoculars weren't enough.