por Bill Tiepelman
Inferno on the Branch
If you ask the birders down at the trailhead what a Pileated Woodpecker sounds like, they’ll give you three answers: a jungle monkey on espresso, a carpenter with a union card and no patience, and the exact ringtone that makes them fumble their binoculars into the mud. I heard all three the morning I met the crimson-crowned chaos engine who would later become the reluctant star of my portfolio and the patron saint of my caffeine addiction. The forest was still damp with night, the understory steamed like a tea kettle, and out of the silhouette of black trunks came a laugh—kik-kik-kik—that sliced the mist like a gossip column through a small town. I was there for a photo—what I call a “fractal field trip,” because apparently I can’t just photograph a bird on a branch like a normal adult. No, my brand requires a branch that curls into fiery spiral filigree as if Mother Nature took a workshop with M.C. Escher and then got spicy with a blowtorch. The maples had played along, sending out burls and lichens in arabesques, but this perch, this ember-painted corkscrew of a limb, looked forged by a blacksmith with an art degree and a grudge. I framed it, adjusted my ISO, and promised the forest I’d be tasteful this time. The forest, veteran of my promises, remained unconvinced. Enter our protagonist: a pileated the size of a skinny chicken and twice as judgmental. He arrived like a thrown comet, leveled the red crest like a Don’t-Speak-to-Me-Until-I’ve-Hammered sign, and rode the branch with the athletic balance of a tightrope walker who’d also taken a few semesters of carpentry. His beak—let’s call it what it is, a gothic chisel—ticked against the bark once, twice, then BAM, a strike so decisive the ants filed a workplace complaint. “Morning,” I whispered, as if the bird spoke English and preferred soft openings. “Just one pose. Hyper-realistic. Moody forest. Inferno on the Branch. You’re going to be merch.” The woodpecker did the slow swivel—one amber eye, then the other—like a maître d’ deciding whether my shoes were acceptable. Satisfied, or at least resigned, he flared his tail into a glossy black fan, braced with white like punctuation marks, and presented me with a profile that would make an owl jealous. In case you’re not a birder, this is the moment the life-listers whisper, “Oh my God, the Merlin app was right,” and try not to squeal. I do not squeal. I exhale very loudly and pretend I planned it. The branch beneath him—my corkscrew diva—began to glow with morning. From trunk to tip the textures rose in spiral rosettes, each curve catching ember-red light. I could feel the composition locking into place: bird’s gaze to the right, fractal plumes unfurling like fire made ferns, shadowed forest soft as velvet behind it all. This is the part where the art professors say “leading lines” and I nod like I discovered geometry personally. He drummed again—tat-tat-tat-TAT—and a flotilla of ants staged an emergency evacuation. It’s a myth that pileateds are chaotic; they’re engineers in feathers, running probabilistic models on every strike. He tested, listened for hollow space, then set to work on the exact patch where the bark had a tiny ripple, the kind only a bird with 50 million years of tool-making behind his eyes would notice. Chips flew. I smelled sap. Somewhere, a squirrel muttered the woodland equivalent of “not again.” “You know you’re trending,” I said, because the adult human brain needs conversation even when the audience is a bird. “Your species is basically the celebrity sighting of the eastern forest. People hear one drumroll and suddenly they’re wildlife photographers. We love your crimson crest. We love your moody lighting. We love that you’re a bulldozer with eyeliner.” The woodpecker paused, tilted his head, and regarded the curves of the branch as if auditioning them. Then he took three deliberate steps higher—click-click-click—and parked himself square in the golden eddy where the spiral foliage created a halo. If he had read my shot list, he could not have done better. I framed tighter, let the background fall charcoal-dark, and watched the reds saturate until they looked like embers in slow motion. My shutter whispered a thousand small yeses. In the trail behind me, a small procession of birders formed, the kind with hats that have sun shields and pockets for snacks and, presumably, life insurance policies for when a Great Horned Owl side-eyes their Chihuahua. They froze in that communal hush that means oh, we are in church now. Someone whispered, “Inferno on the Branch,” like they’d read the caption in my head, and I felt the delicious tingle of a shot earning its title while still being made. “What’s he after?” a new birder breathed. I wanted to say: redemption. I wanted to say: brand synergy. But the truth was simpler. “Carpenter ants,” I murmured. “Big ones. The filet mignon of protein. And maybe the prestige of looking like a living exclamation point.” The bird obliged by extracting one (ant, not exclamation point) and swallowing with the bland professionalism of a sommelier tasting from a paper cup. Then the forest did its favorite magic trick—time dilation. The light slid an inch, the branch went from blood-orange to garnet, and the woodpecker, as if aware of color theory, repositioned step by step until the rule of thirds lined up like we’d rehearsed. He held still long enough for the shutter to whisper a burst, then whip-cracked around to glare at a rival hammering deeper in the ravine. The laugh came again, the espresso-jungle-monkey kind, and a ripple of chills moved through the line like a stadium wave for very quiet people. I could have packed up right there. The image was in the camera and simmering in the back of my skull, already titled, already framed, already begging to become a fine art print with paper so thick it could stop a rumor. But the bird had not finished his set. He fluffed, shook out a snow globe of bark dust, and delivered one last drumroll that echoed off the black trunks and bounced back as applause. And because I am, despite evidence, a professional, I thanked him. Out loud. With feeling. The kind of gratitude you reserve for baristas and unblocked creative flow. “You were incandescent,” I said. “You were Inferno on the Branch.” The woodpecker blinked once, twice, and then, like a stage actor hearing a cue, lifted into the smoky light. He arrowed across the canyon of trees, a scarlet streak that dwindled to a comma in the sentence of the forest, and was gone. The birders exhaled. Someone dabbed at their eyes. Someone else asked me what settings I used, and I gave them the classic answer: “All of them.” We laughed the relieved laugh of people who got what they came for and then a little extra. I checked my screen again and—yes—there it was: the pileated woodpecker regal as myth, the fractal branch uncurling like flame, the dusky forest holding it all like a velvet box. The kind of frame that makes a wall say thank you. Of course, I didn’t yet know what waited deeper in those trees, or why the woodpecker chose that particular ember-lit perch, or what restless geometry was growing beneath the bark like a secret alphabet. That was a problem for Future Me, Photographic Adventurer and Occasional Bad Decision Enthusiast. Present Me just closed my eyes, listened to the dying echoes of the drum, and marked the GPS pin with a name: Inferno on the Branch. What I did next would have made a park ranger sigh and a poet nod approvingly. But that is Part Two, and this forest loves a cliffhanger almost as much as I do. The Ember Grove The thing about woodpeckers—and you can quote me at the next Audubon meeting—is that they don’t just happen. They appear like punctuation in the forest, interrupting your sentence with a full stop or an exclamation mark, and then dare you to rewrite the whole paragraph around them. That morning’s Inferno on the Branch moment could have been the perfect ending to my hike. I could’ve hiked back to the trailhead, smug and caffeinated, clutching my camera like a poker player walking away from the table while still ahead. But smug doesn’t feed curiosity, and caffeine makes you overconfident. I followed the direction of his flight. It wasn’t stalking. It was… professional interest. Birders call it “shadowing” if they want to make it sound respectable, and “woodpecker paparazzi” if they don’t. My boots crunched the frost-laced leaf litter, each step sounding absurdly loud in the cathedral silence. Somewhere ahead, I heard the faint drumming again—slower now, like he was working through a particularly stubborn patch of bark or a crossword puzzle with only vowels. The branch fractals behind me still glowed in my mind’s eye, but the pull forward was irresistible. What, after all, was worth leaving that stage for? The terrain changed subtly. The oaks gave way to older pines, their trunks straight as moral absolutes but scarred with decades of fire and lightning. The undergrowth thinned, replaced by a carpet of needles that muted my steps. And then I saw it: a clearing that shouldn’t exist, at least not in that geometry. The trees formed an almost perfect circle, and in the center grew a twisted giant of a maple, its limbs spiraling in patterns so complex they looked engineered by some cosmic watchmaker. The light in this space was stranger, warmer, as if the canopy filtered it through an old bottle of brandy. And there he was—my woodpecker—clinging to the trunk like it owed him money. His crest caught the filtered light and flared into a molten crown. He hammered with steady, deliberate strikes, each one sending a small snow of reddish bark to the ground. The tree seemed to respond—don’t ask me how—to his rhythm, the spiraling limbs flexing imperceptibly in time, like a dancer stretching before a performance. I crouched, zoomed, and framed. This wasn’t the Inferno branch; this was something else entirely. If the earlier perch was a piece of functional art, this tree was an altar. Every knot and burl glowed faintly, the reds and golds deepening with every beam of morning light. I’d photographed plenty of fractal structures before—ferns, frost, the accidental swirls in a jar of peanut butter—but this was different. The spirals weren’t random; they spoke. The patterns led the eye inward, toward a hollow in the trunk just above the woodpecker’s industrious beak. It was then I noticed the smell: resin, yes, but undercut by something warmer, almost sweet, like cinnamon and old paper. The woodpecker paused, cocked his head, and stared directly into that hollow as though listening for an answer. I swear I heard something—a faint clicking, like the sound of a typewriter buried under moss. He resumed hammering, and the clicking stopped. My skin prickled. Nature loves her mysteries, and I’d just walked into one wearing a camera like a backstage pass. Somewhere above, a shadow flickered through the canopy. Not another woodpecker—too big. I glanced up just in time to see a broad wing vanish into the sunlight. A hawk? Maybe. Or maybe the kind of forest resident you only see once and then spend the rest of your life trying to prove wasn’t a figment of an under-caffeinated morning. I checked the tree again. My woodpecker had moved higher, closer to the hollow, his claws gripping the bark in those perfect zygodactyl toes—two forward, two back—like he was designed in a laboratory for vertical defiance. I inched closer, the photographer in me bargaining with the part of my brain that knew better. The spiral patterns in the bark became hypnotic up close. Tiny ridges caught the light like illuminated manuscript borders, curling inward in deliberate arcs. My lens drank it all in. The closer I got, the more the patterns began to repeat—not just in the bark, but in the shapes of the leaves overhead, in the curve of the woodpecker’s tail feathers, in the ripple of the moss underfoot. It was the forest’s quiet admission: fractals weren’t an art trick. They were the blueprint. The woodpecker stopped hammering and looked down at me with the kind of expression only birds and high school guidance counselors can pull off: equal parts suspicion and pity. Then, without warning, he plunged his head into the hollow and came up with… something. Not an insect. Not sap. It was small, flat, and glinted like old brass. He held it delicately in his beak, turned toward me, and—this part I will argue with anyone over—nodded. Once. Then he flew past me in a flash of crimson and shadow, the object still clamped in his beak. I spun to follow him, tripped over a root, and did a graceless half-roll that put me on my back staring at the spiraled canopy. By the time I scrambled up, he was gone. The clearing was still, the only sound the faint creak of branches in a wind I couldn’t feel. The maple loomed overhead, spirals turning in my peripheral vision, daring me to come closer. I did. My fingers brushed the hollow’s rim. The wood was warm, unnaturally so, and under my touch the spirals seemed to deepen, the grooves tightening into a pattern that felt less like wood grain and more like… handwriting. I snapped a photo, then another, checking the playback obsessively. In each image, the spirals shifted slightly, as though the tree wasn’t posing so much as conversing. And in the very center of the hollow, framed by the curling grain, was a faint, perfect imprint: the outline of a feather. Not a woodpecker’s—too long, too narrow. I didn’t recognize it, and that bothered me more than I wanted to admit. When I finally tore myself away, I marked the GPS again, labeling it “Ember Grove.” The hike back felt longer, every tree suddenly suspect in its geometry. By the time the parking lot came into view, I’d convinced myself the whole thing was just a trick of light, a fever dream of reds and golds. But that night, when I uploaded the shots to my computer, the truth stared back at me in pixel-perfect detail: the spirals were real. The feather was real. And in the corner of one frame, half-hidden by a blur of motion, was the woodpecker—crest blazing, eyes locked on the lens—still carrying that mysterious glint in his beak. I didn’t sleep much. I kept thinking about the hollow, the smell, the clicking sound, the way the branch at Inferno and the maple in the grove shared the same curling geometry. And I kept asking myself one question: what in the forest needs a woodpecker as its locksmith? Whatever the answer was, I had the distinct, unsettling feeling it was waiting for me to come back. The Locksmith’s Secret I’ve done plenty of return trips to interesting photo spots before, but this one didn’t feel like my usual “let’s see if the heron’s still there” jaunt. This felt… loaded. Like the forest and I had an unfinished conversation, and the woodpecker—my so-called locksmith—was the only one holding the spare key. I spent three days trying to act like a normal human: editing other shots, answering emails, pretending I wasn’t Googling “pileated woodpecker mythology” at 2 a.m. Spoiler: turns out that in certain Native folklore, they’re messengers. In others, they’re builders for the gods. In my overcaffeinated brain, they were now both—and also possibly the forest’s maintenance crew. When I finally went back, it was pre-dawn. I wanted to arrive before the light turned the forest into an Instagram cliché. The air was sharp enough to sting my lungs, and the first chorus of birdsong was still warming up. My boots remembered the way without me thinking; my body was a compass set on “creeping around in questionable situations.” Every so often, I’d hear a distant hammering—three beats, pause, three beats—like the woodpecker was playing his own doorbell chime. By the time I reached the clearing, the light was dripping through the canopy like molten brass, just as before. The maple stood waiting, its spirals catching the first fire of the day. And there he was, crest flared, tail braced, pounding away at a new section of bark just below the hollow. The rhythm was steady, almost ceremonial. I raised my camera, half-expecting him to fly off like most self-respecting birds when a paparazzo shows up. Instead, he hopped sideways, giving me a perfect view of what he’d been working on: a ring of shallow holes forming a precise, geometric shape. A lock, I realized. Or at least the bird equivalent of one. Each hole was spaced with uncanny symmetry, like he’d measured it with calipers. My inner art nerd was thrilled; my inner rational human was starting to sweat. I stayed low, inching forward. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he began tapping the holes in a sequence—front, left, right, bottom—as if entering a code. A low thunk followed, not the brittle crack of bark but the dull, resonant shift of wood moving somewhere deeper inside. The spirals in the grain shivered. The hollow darkened, then deepened, as if the space itself was stretching. I couldn’t breathe. The woodpecker stepped aside, cocked his head toward me, and—again, I swear this happened—jerked his beak toward the hollow in a very clear your turn. Everything in me screamed do not stick your hand into strange forest holes. But curiosity is a drug, and I was already high on the scent of resin and whatever ancient secret this tree was cooking up. I set the camera to video, slung it over my shoulder, and reached in. The wood wasn’t just warm; it was pulsing faintly, like a heartbeat through old timber. My fingertips brushed something smooth and cool. I curled my hand around it and pulled it free. It was the same object I’d seen days before—flat, brass-like—but now I could see the detail. A medallion, no bigger than a drink coaster, etched with the same spiraling patterns as the bark, radiating outward from a single feather symbol in the center. The feather was inlaid with something dark, maybe obsidian, that seemed to swallow the light instead of reflecting it. Around the edge, in letters too fine to have been carved by human hands, was an inscription. Not English. Not any script I knew. The characters were fractal too—tiny curves within curves, so intricate I couldn’t follow their lines without getting lost. Behind me, the woodpecker drummed once—sharp, decisive. The ground beneath the maple shuddered just enough for me to feel it through my boots. I looked up, half-expecting the sky to split, but instead I saw movement in the spirals overhead. The branches were… shifting. Slowly, imperceptibly at first, then with deliberate grace. The limbs untwined and retwined into new patterns, closing off the clearing like the iris of an eye. Light poured in through specific gaps, illuminating the medallion in my palm. The inlaid feather shimmered, and for a brief, spine-tingling second, I heard that same clicking sound from before—but louder now, faster, like an invisible typewriter finishing a sentence. “Okay,” I whispered to the bird, because silence would have been worse. “You win. What is this? Why me?” The woodpecker only blinked, then launched himself onto the spiral limb directly above my head. He tilted his beak skyward and called—a loud, rolling kik-kik-kik that bounced between the trunks. Almost immediately, shapes moved at the edge of the clearing. Shadows, but… not entirely. Some tall and narrow, some low and branching, all slipping between shafts of golden light like they belonged to a slower clock than mine. I couldn’t make out faces, only the gleam of eyes reflecting the medallion’s light. They didn’t come closer. They just watched. I felt the weight of the moment the way you feel the weight of deep water. The medallion was warm now, almost hot. The spirals etched into it seemed to crawl under my fingertips, rearranging themselves like puzzle pieces. One shape resolved into something familiar: a map. Not a top-down map with rivers and mountains, but a map of connections—spirals linked to spirals, branches to branches. And at the center, the feather. The same feather etched in the tree, the same feather inlaid into the medallion. The same feather I now realized I’d seen in the subtle patterns of Inferno’s branch days ago. The shadows at the clearing’s edge stirred. The woodpecker called again, softer this time. The spirals in the maple’s bark began to slow, the branches returning to their original positions. The light shifted back to its ordinary golden filter, the clearing once again a simple circle of trees. Whatever had been watching melted back into the forest without a sound. The medallion cooled in my hand, the etched map freezing into place. The woodpecker dropped down to the maple’s trunk, sidled toward me, and with the precision of a jeweler inspecting a gemstone, tapped the medallion once with his beak. Then he launched upward, crest blazing like the last ember in a dying fire, and vanished into the canopy. The clearing was still again. Too still. I stood there a long time, listening for anything—a creak, a drumroll, a laugh. Nothing. Finally, I slipped the medallion into my jacket pocket and started the slow walk back to the trailhead. Every spiral in the bark along the way caught my eye. Every pattern in the moss looked a little too deliberate. By the time I reached my car, I’d stopped telling myself I was imagining things. I wasn’t. The forest was keeping secrets, and my woodpecker friend was one of its gatekeepers. That night, I laid the medallion on my desk under a lamp. The feather symbol seemed dull now, ordinary. But when I turned off the light, it faintly glowed—a deep, ember red, the color of a crest slicing through the morning mist. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. I don’t know what the map leads to, or why he chose to give it to me. But I do know one thing: the next time I hear that jungle-monkey espresso laugh in the forest, I’ll be ready. Camera in one hand, medallion in the other, waiting for my locksmith to open another door I never knew existed. And maybe—just maybe—that’s the whole point. The forest doesn’t hand you answers. It hands you keys, a little at a time, and trusts you to notice the locks. All you have to do is follow the sound of the hammering, and hope you’re clever enough to knock back. Bring “Inferno on the Branch” Into Your World Let the fiery elegance of the pileated woodpecker and the hypnotic curves of the fractal branch ignite your space with our exclusive Inferno on the Branch merchandise. Whether you want a statement piece for your walls, a functional work of art for your daily life, or a tactile puzzle to immerse yourself in, this design brings the forest’s mystery right to you. Showcase the drama and vivid color on a Metal Print for modern, luminous impact, or opt for a timeless Framed Print that turns your wall into a gallery. For something you can carry into the wild—or the farmer’s market—the Tote Bag lets you bring the ember-lit forest wherever you go. And for quiet, mindful moments, piece together the magic one curve at a time with our Jigsaw Puzzle. No matter which form you choose, every piece captures the same rich colors, hyper-realistic details, and mystical energy that made the original image unforgettable. Invite the legend of the locksmith woodpecker into your home—you never know what doors it might open.
