🐾 Pileated Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker

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Who it is

• Scientific name: Dryocopus pileatus
• Family & relatives: A woodpecker in the family Picidae; its relatives are the many other woodpeckers, flickers, and sapsuckers.
• How to spot it: A big black woodpecker with a flaming red crest on its head and bold white stripes on its face and neck.

Its body & abilities

• Size: About 40 to 49 cm long with a wingspan near 66 to 75 cm.
• Weight: Around 250 to 400 g (about 9 to 14 oz).
• Body & adaptations: It has a strong chisel-like bill, a long sticky tongue, and stiff tail feathers that prop it up on tree trunks.
• Top speed: It flies in a bouncy, wavy path between the trees rather than in a straight line.
• Strength: It can hammer its bill against wood many times a second without hurting its head, thanks to a built-in cushion.
• Senses: It has sharp eyesight and fine hearing that helps it find insects moving inside the wood.
• Growing up: Chicks hatch bare and helpless in a tree hole, and both parents feed them until they can fly in about a month.

Where it lives

• Habitat: Mature forests and woodlands with plenty of large, old, and dead trees.
• Where in the world: Across much of North America, in the eastern United States, Canada, and the Pacific coast.
• Territory: A pair defends a large woodland territory all year, often several square kilometers.

What it eats

• Diet: Mostly an insect eater that also takes fruit and nuts, sipping water from puddles and streams.
• Favorite foods: Especially carpenter ants and beetle grubs from inside wood, plus berries and nuts.
• How it hunts: It chisels rectangular holes into trees and uses its long sticky tongue to pull out hidden insects.

How it behaves

• How it moves: It hitches up and around tree trunks in little hops, bracing on its stiff tail, and flies between the trees.
• When it is active: Active by day, tapping and feeding on trees, and sleeping inside tree holes at night.
• Family life: Usually seen alone or in pairs; there is no special group name for woodpeckers.
• How it talks: It calls with loud ringing notes and drums rapidly on hollow wood to send a message far away.
• Babies: The pair carves a fresh nest hole each year where the female lays about three to five eggs.

Its place in nature

• Role in nature: Its old nest holes shelter many other animals; hawks, owls, and tree-climbing predators may hunt it.
• Conservation: Listed as Least Concern by the IUCN, with a stable and even growing population.
• Dangers: Dies from predators, loss of old forest, and flying into windows or wires.

Life & legacy

• How long it lives: About 9 to 12 years in the wild.
• In our culture: The bold red-crested woodpecker helped inspire the famous cartoon character Woody Woodpecker.
• Where to see it: Old forests of the eastern United States and Canada, often heard drumming before it is seen.
• Fun fact: A woodpecker's tongue is so long that it wraps around the inside of its skull when not in use.