SCORES & OUTDOORS: The elusive pileated woodpecker

by Roland D. Hallee

You must remember the cartoon character of a bird with an innate chutzpah and brash demeanor that would fly into our living rooms during cartoon Saturdays in the 1950s and 1960s. He possessed a fluffy red crest and a laugh that bordered on insanity. He was Woody Woodpecker, the 1940 creation of Walter Lantz at Universial Studios, whose character and design would evolve over the years from an insane bird with an unusually garish design to a more refined looking and acting character in the vein of Bugs Bunny.

Why am I bringing this up? Recently, a local resident sent a photo along to us about seeing one by Sheepscot Lake. While they are not a rare bird, they can be quite shy and wary. I have seen a few of them at camp, but usually from relatively long distances. I even had one sitting on an old apple tree stump in my backyard at home, in Waterville, a few years back.

Pileated woodpeckers are a very large North American woodpecker, almost crow sized, inhabiting deciduous forests in eastern North America, the Great Lakes region, the boreal forests of Canada, and into parts of the Pacific Northwest. They are considered the largest North American woodpecker, although the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is larger; its numbers are such that it is considered near or at extinction, although one has been sighted in Maine in recent years.

When Europeans first arrived in North America, they found a land blanketed with mature woods that were the favorite haunts of pileated woodpeckers. During the 18th and 19th centuries, much of this great forest was cut, and the pileateds became rare over much of their range. Changes in lumbering practices and the abandonment of many eastern farms have allowed much of the forest to regenerate. They still need large tracts of woodlands, but they have adapted well to younger trees.

They measure 16-19 inches in length with a red crest and black bill. You’ll find these birds in mature forests with large trees. The territory of these birds can range from 150 – 200 acres. Signs of their presence can be detected by looking for 3 x 6 inch holes in trees. Using suet feeders can bring them close up, at times.

The call is a wild laugh, similar to the Northern Flicker. Its drumming can be very loud, often sounding like someone striking a tree with a hammer. The bird favors mature forests, but has adapted to use second-growth stands and heavily wooded parks as well.

Since these birds eat carpenter ants and wood-boring beetle larvae that tunnel deep into the wood, the birds will excavate a long gash, roughly rectangular, in a tree to retrieve ants.

Pileated woodpeckers raise their young every year in a hole in a tree. In April, the hole made by the male attracts a female for mating and raising their young. Once the brood is raised the woodpeckers abandon the hole and will not use it the next year.

The females will lay three to five white eggs which are incubated for 15-16 days by both the male and female birds. Both male and female will also feed the nestlings. The young woodpeckers will fledge the nest in 24-28 days. The adults and the young will stay together until fall. During this time, the adult birds will continue to feed them and teach them how to find their own food. Around September, the family will break up and the young will find territories of their own.

Pileated woodpeckers have been observed to move eggs that have fallen out of the nest to another site, a rare habit in birds.

Common predators of the pileated woodpecker are Black snakes, Coopers Hawks, Northern Goshawks, Red-tailed Hawks, Great Horned owls and squirrels.

So, pay attention, listen for a low-pitched drumming that trails off in speed and volume at the end. Follow the sound, and you just may find one.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

How many MLB teams have retired Nolan Ryan’s number?

Answer on page 14.