TAMPA, FL — The woodpecker normally prefers softwood deciduous trees…except in one south Tampa neighborhood.
“Oh my god I am so devastated”, Brittany Jones told me when I met her outside her house. “You would think people would commit a crime and it’s just a measly little bird.”
Yes, a crime, a senseless act of vandalism. And Brittany isn’t the only victim of their feathered friend. “I can’t believe it actually happened,” said neighbor J.R. Gaskin.
Car mirrors are now cracked and shattered, all the result of a woodpecker. Brittany Jones’ mother, Dorothy, first spotted it. “I heard something pecking outside and I thought they were doing construction work. And I looked up and went, ‘oh my god that’s a woodpecker.'”
The red-crested fowl has been very busy, because in one south Tampa neighborhood near MacDill Airforce Base, he has hit at least six vehicles.
Thinking he is seeing another woodpecker in the vehicle’s mirror, he has been breaking them out, which doesn’t sit well with the victims. “I’m not too happy about it,” Jennifer Lyle told me, “especially with this kind of vehicle you can’t just replace the glass you have to replace the entire component which is kind of expensive.”
Found by MJ.
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