The Success Story of the Pileated Woodpecker

The rebound of the pileated woodpecker is a refreshing success story at a time when many birds are suffering disastrous declines. Ornithologist Dr. Chandler Robbins has reported that pileateds are among the few forest birds that have adapted to changing habitats and are holding their own.

Pileated woodpeckers all but vanished from many parts of the eastern U.S. in the 19th century as forests were cleared for farmland. In the 1920's they began to reappear in those areas, adapting to second growth, smaller territories, and the closeness of humans. The maturing of trees in suburbs brought them into back yards, where they sometimes partake of the bounty at feeders.

For all their adaptability, pileateds have one unchanging requirement: decaying wood in which to carve roosting and nesting holes. The birds are 17 to 20 inches long and weigh one pound--aside from the ivory-bill, they are North America's largest woodpeckers--and trees must be sizable to accommodate them. A cavity opening may be only a few inches in diameter, but the interior is as much as two feet deep. Although mates stay together all year, they maintain separate bedrooms: each has its own roosting hole to which it retires at night. A third cavity may be used during nesting season to raise the young. In an area with few dead or decaying trees, competition for cavities can be fierce between neighboring pairs. When ample cavities are available, each pair may stake out a territory of 150 to 200 acres and pairs may never encounter each other. A woodland with no dead or decaying trees will have no pileateds or other woodpeckers.

Dead trees are also home to the pileated's favorite food, carpenter ants. The birds bore into the core of a dead tree or a fallen log to expose the ant nest and may consume thousands of the insects in one meal. They also relish beetles and other insects found in rotting wood, as well as fruits of wild vines and bushes.

If pileated woodpeckers move into your neighborhood or favorite park, you'll probably know it. The volume of their drumming and calls makes them hard to miss. Their cuk-cuk call, a series of 10 to 15 short notes, is most commonly heard and serves to keep the birds in touch when they are foraging separately. The pileated's drumming is lower-pitched than that of other woodpeckers and grows softer toward the end. For a thorough description of calls and displays, consult A Guide to Bird Behavior, Volume III by Donald and Lillian Stokes.

You can help these wonderful birds by appointing yourself guardian of their habitat. If you have a dead or decaying tree on your property that poses no hazard, allow all or part of it to stand (pileateds will nest as low as 15 feet from the ground). If your local park officials are removing too many dead trees from public land, alert them to the necessity of providing cavities for woodpeckers. And hang a suet feeder on a tree in your back yard--you might get the thrill of a bird lover's life one day when you look out and spot a black-backed visitor with a brilliant red crest.