Archive-The Originals: The Woodpeckers’ Granary(163)

The Woodpeckers’ Granary is a story that is about woodpeckers working as a team to gather acorns, make their granary and protect it too. It also teaches children am important life lesson of not taking others things without permission.

Free activity sheet available at www.rituvaish.com/archive-originals-the-woodpeckers-granary.

Send your artwork to rituvaish@gmail.com.

Transcript

You must have heard that it’s wrong to take other people’s things without their permission. Well, in today’s story, someone learns a lesson about not picking up things that don’t belong to them.

So gather around.

Before I plunge into the story, let me tell you dear children that acorn woodpeckers are a particular type of woodpeckers that eat, as the name implies, mainly acorns.   They live in a family that cooperates and helps each other.

A big flock of acorn woodpeckers was soaring in the sky.

This flock had a fledgling named, Nutty.

Nutty loved his flock for it had his papa, mummy, uncles, aunts, and cousins too. They always stayed together and had a lot of fun playing as well as working together.

One day while flying they spotted an oak tree grove. As they were circling over the grove, all of them were enchanted by its tall oaks. So, they decided to get a closer look and landed in the oak grove.

They found that not only were the tall oak trees gorgeous, there were beautiful wildflowers growing and they could even hear the gurgling of a waterfall nearby. Every member of the flock was elated.

Looking at his flock’s happy faces, papa announced “Let's make this our new home. It is so pretty here.” The whole flock chirped in agreement.

The fledglings couldn’t believe their ears, “Hurray! A new home! That’s awesome.”

Looking keenly all around the oak trees Nutty was worried.

“There are no holes here,” he gave an anxious shriek.

Another fledgling added, “Where will we store our acorns?”

“Well! We will teach you how to make the holes and store the nuts. It’s hard work, but doing things together makes it enjoyable,” papa assured the little ones.

All the cousins exchanged a smile and gave high-five to each other with their wings and said, “That’ll be fun! We have never made our holes as in our previous home we already had them.”

Nutty exclaimed, “I’ll make the biggest one!”

Mummy who was observing the excitement amongst the young ones added, “ We don’t need to make big ones. You have to learn to make the holes just the right size to fit the acorn.”

One of the uncles explained, “And remember not to make them lower on the trunk as then the other animals might take our nuts.”

Soon, all the elders got busy with what woodpeckers love doing the most, drilling small holes in the trunk of the oak trees.

Papa made himself comfortable on the trunk of one of the oak trees and called all the fledglings, “Come here, let me teach you how to make the right size holes and the correct distance apart.”

Happily, all the fledglings gave noisy trills and under papa’s guidance got busy pecking the wood to make the cavities.

One of the uncles, flying around the grove, gave a loud call to the flock, “I suggest that since it’s fall, some of us should start harvesting the green acorns. If we delay, we might not have enough acorns in our new granary for the winter months. The others can keep drilling the wood.”

The flock unanimously agreed. They knew building a new granary isn’t an easy task.

Every day, some would fly out in search of acorns, bring back some to keep in the cavities. In the meantime, the others would frantically make holes in the oak trees.

In a few weeks, all their hard work paid off. Their granary was almost ready.

The fledglings were most excited as it was their first year to make holes and store the nuts. They were also very possessive about them.

One day, after soaring in the sky, the flock returned to the grove of the oak trees.

Nutty, enthusiastic about his acorn went straight to check on his very first acorn that he had stored.

Nutty couldn’t believe that the hole was empty. He screeched, “My acorn is not there.”

All you little children listening out there, can you guess what had happened to the acorn.

Well let’s listen ahead to find out. 

One day Nutty found that one of the acorns was missing and gave out a loud shriek that his acorn is not there.

“Mine is also missing,” shouted another one from behind the tree. Mummy calmed them down, “They might have fallen down to the ground. Go look for them”

Instantly, the two cousins flew down and looked all around the tree but could not find their acorns.

Unfortunately, the next day too some of the acorns were gone.

“For sure there is a thief!” announced one of the uncles.

Vexed with the situation the father said, “There has to be a way to find out who the trespassers are who are stealing from our granary. Let’s have a flock meeting right now.”

Everyone got together and started thinking about ways to find out who the thief was.

One of the aunts suggested, “Let us do aerial passes around the grove and catch the thief.”

Mummy recommended, “That’s a great idea. But let's distribute the work as we can neither afford to skip collecting the nuts nor can we skip guarding our granary.”

Uncle approved, “That’s right. Hence, some keep gathering the nuts, while the others keep a watch on our granary..”

“That's a great plan,” echoed the flock.

The next day, the woodpeckers were nervous but everyone went about carrying on with their respective duties.

Till noon, the guarding woodpeckers found nothing unusual, apart from the rustling of the leaves and the melodious music of the wind passing through the grove.

Suddenly, the guards saw some movement amongst the dry heap of leaves and they became alert.

They saw a tiny squirrel who looked here and there for any predators and then quickly climbed and reached the granary, She was about to get the acorn out when the guard woodpeckers shouted, “Hey! You thief squirrel, you should be ashamed of yourself for stealing our food. Go away at once. If you are seen anywhere around our granary, you'll have to face the consequences.”

The squirrel was taken aback, the words of the guarding woodpecker pinched her badly and she scurried away. That night she couldn't sleep as the words, “You thief squirrel” kept on resonating in her ears.

She thought, “I am not a thief!”

But then she realised that if we pick up something, that belongs to someone else without taking permission, that’s being a thief. She was devastated and vowed to rectify her mistake.

The next morning, she went looking for acorns and came back with them to the oak grove.

The guarding woodpeckers yelled out, “ We told you that you should not come close to our granary.”

The squirrel pleaded showing the acorns that she had brought, “I am so sorry. See, I have come to replace the nuts back in the hole. I promise never to steal again. Please don’t call me a thief.”

The woodpeckers were surprised by squirrel’s change of heart.

Nutty said pleasantly, “Thanks! That’s sweet of you. to replace our nuts.”

The others replied,“ We forgive you and won’t call you a thief.”

From that day, the squirrel worked hard and never stole anything.

And As for the woodpeckers, the flock was delighted that they could find the thief.

Since then, the acorn woodpeckers have always believed in: Team work makes dreams work.