I was off by myself on a grouse hunt in early October, most of the trees were ablaze in fall colors and some had even already dropped their leaves. My favorite time of the year with the cool days and on this day I was on my way back to the truck, another hour and a half away. Carefully picking my way back on an old roadbed that was now hardly even a trail and getting increasingly hard to follow as the years went on. Alongside the trail was a male downy woodpecker, the smallest of the woodpeckers, flitting from branch to branch looking for food in the form of insects or buds. He didn't appear to be having much luck as I thought of a DQ Blizzard that was my usual treat on my way home. Three hours later I found myself enjoying that Blizzard and thinking back to that downy woodpecker, wondering if whatever he was finding to eat was as good as my treat.