By Rory Hale – REALTOR®, Rural Properties & Acreages near Calgary

"Woody Woodpecker’s Real-Life Cousin: The Pileated Woodpeckers of the Alberta Foothills"

Living rural can mean starting your day with the rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of a feathered carpenter hard at work, carving out his masterpiece on an old aspen tree. Out here in the Alberta foothills, that sound isn’t coming from a construction site — it’s the signature call of the Pileated Woodpecker, nature’s own lumberjack.

As a rural realtor,...