BIRD OF THE MONTH - Pileated Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpeckers are mostly black with white stripes on the face and neck and a flaming-red crest. Males have a red stripe on the cheek. In flight, the bird reveals extensive white underwings and small white crescents on the upper side, at the bases of the primaries.

Pileated Woodpeckers are forest birds that require large, standing dead trees. Their entrance hole to nests is oblong rather than the circular shape of most woodpecker holes.

They forage in standing dead trees and they make impressive rectangular excavations that can be a foot or more long and go deep inside the wood. These holes pursue the tunnels of carpenter ants, the woodpecker’s primary food. When hammering into this soft wood, Pileated Woodpeckers use their long neck to pull far back from the tree and then make powerful strikes with their heavy bill, pulling with their feet to increase the strength of the blow. The sound is often audible as a heavy thunk, and large chips of wood collect on the ground below.

They are quite vocal, typically making a high, clear, series of piping calls that lasts several seconds and also give shorter calls that sound like wuk, wuk or cuk, cuk to indicate a territory boundary or to give an alarm. Pileated Woodpeckers are monogamous and hold large territories; it’s rare to see more than two birds together at a time.