bird peck
n.— «Sapsuckers are unwitting heroes to many creatures, but in the eyes of the timber industry, not so much. Timber people hate sapsuckers because they feel the birds damage the trees (unlike them, who only cut the entire tree down). They even have a name for lumber that has sapsucker damage. It’s called “bird peck.” Really, it is. That’s a rather cute name coming from guys who carry chain saws all day long.» —“Sapsucker is the culprit” by Mike O’Connor Harwich Oracle (Orleans, Massachusetts) Jan. 31, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...