Feathery Culprit Causes Widespread Destruction In MA Town

ROCKPORT, MA — Residents of Rockport couldn't figure out why they were waking up to damaged car mirrors and windshields until a neighbor identified an unlikely culprit: a pileated woodpecker.

“We have a vandal in the neighborhood,” Janelle Favaloro wrote on Facebook, according to The New York Times. “He was described as 18 to 24 inches tall, wearing black and white with a red hat.”

Favaloro, who has lived in the Squam Hill section of Rockport for 36 years, was the first to notice the odd damage to her car. When the mysterious culprit targeted her brother-in-law's car next, she started piecing the clues together.

"(The woodpecker) came into the yard and he started hopping around on the vehicles and we weren't thinking that he was doing anything wrong," Favaloro told CBS Boston.

The feathered fugitive was then caught on camera, perched on cars and pecking at side mirrors. Many were left cracked and damaged in his wake, reports said.

Resident Louis Perry told WCVB the woodpecker has been drilling his house for several years.

"He's getting crazy this year. He's doing some stuff," Perry told the station. "And he's on the news. He's famous now."

Resident David Rash nearly blamed his son for the destruction until he spoke with his neighbors.

"Yeah, they see their reflection, and they go for it as if it's a rival," Rash told WCVB. "And my neighbor showed me her two mirrors were attacked."

Donna Cooper, president of the Merrimack Valley Bird Club, said the woodpecker's violent and destructive behavior comes down to mating season.

"Of course, they're not interested in the other males being around, so they will attack males and try to scare them away, get them to go away or go somewhere else. And this often or can include attacking mirror images of themselves, including windows and cars," Cooper told CBS Boston.

Meanwhile, Rockport residents are taking the chaos in stride. Favaloro told The New York Times that the experience has brought neighbors together.

“It’s hard to be mad at him,” she said.