Pileated Woodpecker
Mollie is squirrel crazy and their size and motions, clinging to the side of a tree, attracts her attention so she often helps me find them. The pileated is a large woodpecker which the cartoon Woody Woodpecker was roughly modeled after. Like all woodpeckers and the smaller sapsucker they can be found digging into the bark of trees looking for food in the forests here in North Idaho.
I am not a birder (or twitcher as they are known in Britain) but in a way who isn’t. I mean who does not love birds in all their forms?
The pileated, unlike smaller woodpeckers, makes large deep squarish holes that look like woodworking mortises. Usually these are found in living cedar trees but they will also hunt the bark of other tree species such as the Douglas fir. Here you will see holes in the bark near the base of the tree as well as much higher up.
Unlike other woodpeckers the pileated seems comfortable digging in fallen logs and at the base of trees. I have seen them often in these lower places. They seem to have little fear of being on the ground.
In the fall I have observed an increase in the activity of carpenter ants in cedar trees where the dead heart wood is exposed. There will be a light colored fall of sawdust from the ants digging new galleries. In the next few days, a square hole will appear where the pileated have gone in for an easy meal.
Like most woodpeckers, they are fairly shy and will play hide and seek moving to the far side of a tree trunk away from me. They then peek their heads around the tree to keep an eye on me. They often work in pairs and will make soft mewing noises to each other as they work on different trees. They seem to reassure each other while they hunt for bugs on tree trunks.
When they are hammering away making deep holes then the din can be heard throughout the forest. This may be the only way to find them by following the staccato hammering.
At times they perch high on trees and make the five-call alarm cry which they also do as they fly longer distances over the forest. This call is remarkably similar to the red shafted flicker when it flies. I have also observed the green woodpecker in the meadows of Houghton in the UK making a similar cry when it flies across the meadows.
There are two sub-species in the US, the Northern and Southern Pileated Woodpecker. The Latin name is picus pileatus. Pileatus is Latin for ‘capped’. (Picus is Latin for woodpecker or magpie.) They are classified in the genus Dryocopus derived from the Greek druokopos combining druos "tree" and kopos "beating".
The other members of Dyocopus you would recognize instantly as being in the same family.
They make their homes in the dead parts of living trees or in dead trees or utility poles. I was watching one fly and land on a utility pole and I waited for it to poke
its head around the pole to have a look at me, but it never did. I then walked quietly around the pole and saw that it had nest holes there. I intend to keep my eye on these as spring approaches. They make a new nest hole each season. The abandoned ones make homes for other birds.
We are so fortunate to have these ancient and cheerful looking birds around us. They add a splash of color and are rare enough to always surprise and delight.
