The call of the wild was not for the mild as a Eudora, Miss., volunteer firefighter took matters - and vines - into his own hands to climb some 30 feet up a tree to free a trapped pileated woodpecker before some amazed neighbors.
"It was quite a sight. He had no fear at all but went right up there, like Tarzan," said Petronella "Petra" May, a native of South Africa. She is a trained volunteer for Mississippi Wildlife Rehabilitation Inc. who lives with her husband, Buz, in the Lake of the Hills area of western DeSoto County.
Already busy taking care of a brood of orphaned otters at her home, she was bracing for the upside-down, red-crested woodpecker to tumble down out of a tight tangle of brush, but 20-year-old firefighter Richard Dees freed it safely.
More: The Commercial Appeal