If the pecking of your bird is very quiet, try moving your thumbs and fingers around on the paper and moving your hands apart and together with a different rhythm and motion. With practice, the noise will be surprisingly loud.
Begin with a square of origami paper, colored side up.
1. Fold corner to corner. Unfold.
2. Bring the bottom edges of the paper square to the center line.
3. Fold dot to dot. Unfold.
4. Fold dot to dot, exposing two colored triangles.
5. With mountain folds, fold behind the excess paper at the left and right. Note that the folds are parallel to the center line.
6. Fold the paper in half.
7. Rotate the paper to a horizontal position. We are about to make two folds, so that the paper looks like Step 9 when finished. The mountain fold already exists. The angled valley fold is new. When the two folds are made together, on the front and back of the paper, it will look . . .
8....like this. The technical description is a “crimp.” Flatten the paper so that it looks exactly like Step 9.
9. This is the completed crimp. Now make an Outside Reverse Fold that begins deep inside the crimp and slopes up a little as it moves to the right . . .
10....like this. Make another Outside Reverse Fold . . .
11....like this. Note the exact position of the head. With mountain and valley folds, push the beak into the head and bring it back out.
12. This is the completed head.
13. Your model should look like this. If the proportions and angles of what you have made are radically different from what is shown here, start again from Step 7. Open the center fold of the paper.
14. To make a loud “rat-a-tat” sound, hold very firmly as shown. Your thumbs are just below the V-shaped valley fold made in Step 7. Move your hands rapidly together and apart and the head should knock noisily against the tree!
