Pileated Woodpecker

Dryocopus pileatus

Order PICIFORMES - Family PICIDAE

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1. Cool Facts
2. Description
3. Similar Species
4. Sound
5. Range
6. Habitat
7. Food
8. Behavior
9. Reproduction
10. Conservation Status
11. Other Names

Nearly as large as a crow, the Pileated Woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in most of North America. Its loud ringing calls and huge, rectangular excavations in dead trees announce its presence in forests across the continent.

Cool Facts

• The Pileated Woodpecker digs characteristically rectangular holes in trees to find ants. These excavations can be so broad and deep that they can cause small trees to break in half.

• A Pileated Woodpecker pair stays together on its territory all year round. It will defend the territory in all seasons, but will tolerate floaters during the winter.

• The feeding excavations of a Pileated Woodpecker are so extensive that they often attract other birds. Other woodpeckers, as well as House Wrens, may come and feed there.

• The Pileated Woodpecker prefers large trees for nesting. In young forests, it will use any large trees remaining from before the forest was cut. Because these trees are larger than the rest of the forest, they present a lightning hazard to the nesting birds.

Description

• Size: 40-49 cm (16-19 in)
• Wingspan: 66-75 cm (26-30 in)
• Weight: 250-350 g (8.83-12.36 ounces)

• Large woodpecker.
• Red crest on head.
• Black body.

• White in wings, at base of primaries, and underwing linings.
• White conspicuous in flight; at rest shows only as small white spot at front of wing.
• Black and white stripes on face.
• White stripe extending from base of bill down neck.
• White stripe above eye and below crown.
• Throat white.
• Bill thick and silvery gray.
• Yellowish feathers over nostrils.
• Legs and feet grayish black.
• Eyes yellow.

Sex Differences

Sexes similar, male has red crown and forehead and red in black mustache stripe. Female has gray to yellow-brown forehead and no red in mustache stripe.

Immature

Juvenile similar to adult, but has shorter crest and brown eyes.

Similar Species

• No other living North American woodpecker is large and black with a red crest.
• The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is similar but even larger. It has a large pale white bill, a black throat, a black crown, a white line down the neck extending onto the back, and very large white patches in the wings. In flight, the trailing edge of the wing is black in Pileated Woodpecker and is white in Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
• Calls of pileated resemble those of Northern Flicker, but are louder and more ringing.

Sound

Call a loud, ringing "kuk-kuk-kuk." Drumming loud and resonant.

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Resident throughout southern Canada, Midwest, and East, westward to eastern North Dakota and eastern Texas. In western United States found along Pacific Coast and northern Rockies.

Habitat

Found in deciduous or coniferous forests with large trees.

Food

Insects, primarily carpenter ants and wood-boring beetle larvae, fruits, and nuts.

Behavior

Foraging

Gleans from branches, trunks, and logs. Makes deep rectangular excavations in trees and logs. Pries off long slivers of wood to expose ants.

Reproduction

Nest Type

Cavity in tree, usually dead tree. Cavity unlined except for wood chips.

Egg Description

White.

Clutch Size

Usually 4 eggs. Range: 1-6.

Condition at Hatching

Naked and helpless.

Conservation Status

Pileated Woodpecker populations declined greatly with the clearing of the eastern forests. The species rebounded in the middle 20th century, and has been increasing slowly but steadily in most of its range. Only in Arkansas do numbers seem to be going down.

Other Names

Grand pic (French)

Sources used to construct this page:

Bull, E. L., and J. A. Jackson. 1995. Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus). In The Birds of North America, No. 148 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.