Odd Woodpecker Behavior

I have been walking to work again thanks to my cold getting better, although today I feel like a new one is settling in. This morning, I heard a strange rattling sound over the podcast in my headphones. I stopped my player and listened for a moment, and then I heard it again, a sound like a drumstick rapping on something metal. A moment of looking around, and I spotted a woodpecker of a species I had never seen before sitting on top of a piece of metal covering the chimney of a house. As I watched, it rapped out on the metal as a woodpecker does when drilling for food, then cocked its head as if listening for a response. Perhaps anthropomorphizing just a bit here, but it wasn't making a dent in the metal and it certainly wasn't getting anything to eat of there.

Has anybody ever seen a woodpecker do that before?