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Note: Unfortunately, I didn’t get down to the refuge for the Great Backyard Bird Count because of car trouble.
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I received a photo of a Pileated Woodpecker from Richard and Dianne Eakin taken at the Erie National Wildlife Refuge. Pileated Woodpeckers have to be one of my favorites. Thank you for sending it in. I’ll give some facts about the specie under the photo.
- Pileated Woodpeckers are almost as large as a crow, about 15 inches. It has a black body, a red crest, white stripes on its neck and black and white stripes on its face.
- Males and females are similar, but males have a red forehead, and females have a gray to yellowish brown forehead. The male has a red slash in the black mustache on the sides of the head. This one appears to be a female.
- They have yellow stiff feathers over their nostrils to keep the wood chips out.
- They live in coniferous and deciduous forests.
- They make rectangular holes in trees to find ants and beetles that they gather with their long, sticky tongue. They eat insects, fruits and nuts and also are found on suet feeders.
- They make their nest in tree cavities, lay about 4 eggs and both parents incubate the eggs, the female during the day and the male at night.
- Pileated can be pronounced 2 ways, with a short i or a long i sound.
- The pileated woodpecker “drums” on hollow trees with its bill to claim territory.
- A Pileated Woodpecker pair stays together on its territory all year round. They will tolerate floaters in the winter but otherwise defends its territory.
- To hear its call and the drumming sound it makes on the tree please, click here.
Come for a visit to the refuge and see if you can spot the Pileated Woodpeckers.
Information on the Pileated gathered from Cornell’s All About Birds and from NatureWorks.
