Pileated Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker - Our Largest Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker - Adult Female

Imagine you are walking peacefully in our forest and a loud, high-pitched 'kuk kuk keekeekeekeekeekeekuk kuk' sound bursts forth from the trees near you.  It makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck but soon you see the beautiful creature making the song.  A large crow-sized blackish bird lands on a dead tree near you.  You now see our largest and, in some ways, most beautiful woodpecker.   It is not ver wary of humans and usually goes about feeding while you watch.

The Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is 42 cm (16 in) long and is immediately recognizable as a large blackish woodpecker with a crest on its head.  It is loud, boisterous and flamboyant.  It is usually seen on dead and dying trees and stumps chipping off large pieces of wood looking for its favourite food, ants, insect larvae and beetles.

Pileated Woodpecker - Adult Female

The Pileated Woodpecker is North America's largest woodpecker except for the extinct or nearly-extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker.  It is mostly black with a dark gray bill.  Most noticeable is its scarlet red crest.  The red on the crest extends down to the bill in males but stops on the forehead in females as shown in the top photo above.  Males also have a red malar stripe (from the edge to the bill onto the side of the throat).  This malar stripe is black in the female.  The Pileated Woodpecker has a white chin and a large white stripe running from the bill across the face and down the neck to the side of the breast.  The wings have a large white patch at the base of the primary feathers and a large amount of white under the wings.  The white at the base of the primary feathers shows as a large white patch in flight.  The feet, legs and tail are black.  The two photos above show adult females.  Below see a male feeding his offspring.

Pileated Woodpecker - Adult Male [Internet Photo]

The Pileated Woodpecker is found over much of Canada except the far north and the prairie area of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  It is also found in the eastern United States.  It is a non-migratory species so we can see it year round.

Like other woodpeckers these woodpeckers drum on hollow trees to claim territory.  Their drumming is loud and rather slow at about 15 beats per second.  The Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers beat at about 17 to 25 beats per second (Sibley).  Pileated Woodpeckers build their nests in tree cavities where they lay 3 to 8 white eggs.  Both adults tend to the incubation and rearing of the young.

According to iBirdPro, Pileated Woodpeckers make extra holes leading from their nest cavities to allow escape from predators.  They also claim that this species pecks the bark around the entrance to their nest cavities to make the sticky sap running from the pecked bark deter some predators such as snakes.  Our balsam fir trees would be good for that!  It would be interesting to see what percentage of Pileated Woodpecker nests here are in balsam firs.

I hope you see a Pileated Woodpecker the next time you go for a walk in the woods.  If you do, you will be truly blessed.