Pileated Woodpeckers

I snapped this picture of a pileated woodpecker from our dining room window last week. (It's pronounced pill-ee-ated, not pile-ated, as my old neighbor used to say. :) We have a pair of them that forage about the homestead.





A Pileated Woodpecker pair stays together on its territory all year round. So we see these two together quite a bit. When we don't see them, we often just hear them. They are loud and make these repeated "wuk" sounds that are pretty monkey or jungle-birdie sounding. (That's a very technical description, I know. :) 

I snapped this picture of the pair last summer.

I spied these out of the window.

Yup, I'm pretty sure that's a carpenter ant on my stone house.
(Did I mention that the eaves, window and door frames are wooden?!)

Pileated woodpeckers are LARGE, at least crow-sized. And they are striking... and I mean that in both senses of the word. Their black and white coloration with their red crests make them stand out from their surroundings. And they make some impressive drumming, which creates some impressive holes. The enthusiastic drumming that creates such holes sounds like a loud, fast hammering, and is audible for a great distance. (Woodpeckers also drum to attract mates and to announce the boundaries of their territories.)

You can tell a pileated woodpecker hole from other woodpecker holes because it is usually square-ish. What the birds are after is ants and larvae... specifically carpenter ants. (You can't live by the woods without carpenter ants about. I'm trying to remain calm and to remind myself that my home is partially stone.)

I headed out only 4 wks. postpartum to show these
to my kids.

Pileated woodpecker excavations can be so broad and deep that they can cause small trees to break in half! The holes these birds make offer crucial shelter to many species including swifts, owls, ducks, bats, and pine martens. They often attract other birds as well. Other woodpeckers and House Wrens, may come and feed in the same place.

I once bought a cedar pileated woodpecker feeder (similar to the one in the link) that held suet cakes when we lived at our old house. It was distinctive because it had a big "tail board" that enabled the large birds to cling to it. I am SO glad it didn't attract a pair of pileated woodpeckers to nest in the yard back then because at the time I had no idea just how destructive they were! I would have been heartbroken to have the 150 year old trees attacked and damaged/killed. Here it is not so worrisome. We could lose some of our trees and be none the worse. We are practically in the woods after all!