Massachusetts town under siege by feathered vandal whos damaged 25 cars in mating season pecking spree

Caught red-beaked.A frisky bird weathering mating season has taken aim at dozens of cars in a Massachusetts town — leaving residents shielding their vehicles from the feathered menace’s sharp beak, according to reports.The pesky two-month mystery behind at least 25 punctured and shattered sideview mirrors and windshields in Rockport was recently cracked when a local caught the pileated woodpecker in the act.“The woodpecker showed up and landed on the windshield wipers of the RV in our yard and was looking at its reflection,” Janelle Favaloro, 59, told Today.“And we were like, ‘You know what, I bet he was the one that damaged the mirrors, as well.'”Favaloro, one of the angry bird’s unsuspecting victims, shared the discovery on her neighborhood Facebook page, describing the “vandal” as “18 to 24 inches tall, wearing black and white with a red hat.”Locals quickly revealed a flurry of similar damage left in the woodpecker’s path.Mike Foster said the avian left a “nice big crack” on his Ford F-350 pickup truck.“When it landed on the window, I thought it was my girlfriend tapping on the window,” he told the New York Times.“I was like, ‘Oh, I’m in trouble.’ It was staring me right in the eyes for a solid 30 seconds.

That woodpecker is looking at 30 years to life right now, I think.”Experts suggested the black-and-white woodpecker’s destructive behavior is linked to the territorial crow-sized male bird mistaking its reflection in the car mirrors as a rival while it flutters through mating season.One specialist told the outlet that the woodpecker’s strike is the “biomechanical equivalent of a hammer.”“This time of year is mating season, so all birds, not just pileated woodpeckers, but all birds are getting into a very aggressive, territorial courtship display,” a spokesperson for Zoo Miami told Today.“If they’re seeing the reflection of themselves, they don’t understand it’s a reflection; they think it’s a c...