Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 17, 1993 TAG: 9302170047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
IN THIS GAME, AMELIA HOLDS THE WILD CARD
A few wild notes:
Fallingwater Cascade, a stream that roars down a rocky chute in the mountains just the far side of the Peaks of Otter, is a popular spot in warm weather.
But it's a forbidding place in winter. The trail gets icy. The wind gets shrill and penetrating. The cascades are more difficult to enjoy. Few people visit.
It is once again the domain of the pileated woodpecker. The big, raucous birds are busily doing a number on every piece of wood they can hammer with their beaks. Their red crests bob like power tools. A pair of 'peckers was smacking away at a rotted trunk at water's edge on Monday, raining splinters into the rushing water.
Chased by a rare winter intruder, they retreated to the treetops to squawk their comical alarms.
Their antics haven't changed much, apparently, since 1940. That year, a pileated woodpecker was hard at work on the roof of a honeymoon cottage in California. Inside were newlyweds Grace and Walter Lantz. Mr. Lantz was annoyed; Mrs. Lantz saw market potential.
After the honeymoon, Mr. Lantz got back to work - as a cartoonist. He's best remembered for a varmint he drew, inspired by the large woodpecker that interrupted his marital bliss. Mrs. Lantz became the voice of the critter - Woody Woodpecker.
Coming off the Peaks of Otter on Virginia 43, headed for Bedford, there's a raccoon sipping at a roadside puddle in broad daylight. He scurries quickly into the brush when he's spotted. The puddle? An unsavory blend of the runoff from a wet road and the liquified results of a car-deer collision. Think twice before kissing that next raccoon.
On Interstate 81 in Salem, there's a survey under way Monday. One surveyor is bent at the waist, talking to a brownish bird - perhaps a hawk - that is hunched on the ground and apparently injured. By the time I can get back to that spot to inquire about the nature of the conversation, the surveyor is gone.
The procreation watch continues at the Explore Park, where a pair of hot-to-trot red wolves are penned in an enclosure in hopes they'll kill the boredom by breeding.
The wolves, members of an endangered species, are not on public exhibit. Unlike Connie Chung and Maury Povich, toiling publicly to make babies, wolves work best privately.
And finally, Amelia. Roanoke's ne'er-do-well peregrine falcon still is languishing at the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Weyers Cave. On the first of October, the world's clumsiest raptor dunked into a pool of used oil and was rescued.
Amelia, who also fell down a downspout and got stranded on a downtown Roanoke awning during her brief stay in the wild, was scrubbed clean and sent to the center to recuperate.
Physically, the falcon seems healthy, says Ed Clark, the center's director. But she doesn't want to fly.
Veterinarians are toying with the idea of letting a falconer work with Amelia to see if she can fly. If she can, but doesn't seem fit to endure the rigors of urban life, Amelia could be re-released into a wilderness area.
If she can't prove that she can survive alone, and this seems likely, Amelia may end up on exhibit at Mill Mountain Zoo.