Photo © 2005 by Jim Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

Pileated Woodpeckers

The Crow-sized Pileated Woodpecker is our largest woodpecker species and one of the largest in the world. These impressive creatures create the large, elongated craters you see pocking dead trees in the forest where they hunt for grubs and especially carpenter ants deep in the decaying wood. In fact on excessively rotten wood they can totally demolish a small tree in a matter of days. They're also the loudest and most vocal woodpecker species in our area as well.

Should you hear a loud staccato drumming while out hiking in the winter try to follow the sound to its source. If you're successful you'll almost certainly find a male Pileated Woodpecker perched on the side of a large hollow tree rapidly hammering it with his beak and making a great deal of noise.

These loud eruptions of sound are not made by woodpeckers in search of food and are entirely seasonal. Unlike nearly all other birds woodpeckers don't sing to attract their mates and advertise their real estate acquisitions, instead they find the largest hollow tree with the best acoustics and hammer out their love songs to attract mates. Since this noise-making is both loud and can be heard for long distances it serves as a suitable substitute for singing.

As anyone living in or near the woods can attest these displays aren't limited to just trees. House siding (provided it has the right acoustical properties), tin roofs and even electrical transformers have been used by amorous woodpeckers to tap out their love songs.

Photo © 2005 Jim Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

The Pileated Woodpecker was an important animal to the aborigines who held it to be a sacred bird and potent omen. A Pileated's arrival in an Indian village was usually taken as a sign of impending warfare (the bright red crest was said to resemble a scalping victim's) or other unrest. They also carried messages to the spirit world for the local shaman.

The Pileated Woodpecker, like all woodpeckers, is a cavity nester that is found only in old, mature woodlands of considerable extent. Both parents excavate the roomy nest cavity in a suitable tree, usually at quite a height, and then take turns incubating up to five eggs until hatching. And while it doesn't happen often they will sometimes visit suet feeders set out by human admirers.

This is an indicator species for ecologists and those who gage the viability of our woodlands. The presence of this species in a forest is an indication of a healthy forest ecosystem since it is able to support the top predator of this particular niche. Their presence also indicates a lack of any gross disturbance in the forest system's dynamics.

And while all of the above is interesting I just like to see them because they look so... odd (this species was the model for Woody Woodpecker, by the bye). They're my favorite woodpecker species.

Offsite Link:

• Pileated Woodpecker, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center page

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