Juvenile male. Photo: Mick Thompson/Audubon Photography Awards
Dryocopus pileatus
| Conservation status | Numbers in eastern United States declined sharply in 18th and 19th centuries with clearing of eastern forest. Since about 1900, a gradual comeback, with the species becoming common again in some areas. May be adapting to second-growth woods and proximity of humans. |
|---|---|
| Family | Woodpeckers |
| Habitat | Conifer, mixed, and hardwood forests; woodlots. Favors mature deciduous or mixed deciduous-coniferous forest, also coniferous forest. Wide variety of specific forest types from southern swamps to old-growth Douglas-fir forest of northwest. Also in second-growth and fragmented woodlots, as long as some large trees are present. |
Forages mainly by probing, prying, and excavating in dead wood in search of insects. May gouge deep holes in rotten wood to get at ant nests, sometimes tearing apart stumps and big sections of fallen logs. May clamber about acrobatically in small branches to get at berries.
3-5. White. Incubation is by both sexes (male incubating at night and part of day), about 18 days. Young: Both parents feed nestlings, by regurgitation. Young leave nest 26-28 days after hatching, may remain with parents 2-3 months.
Both parents feed nestlings, by regurgitation. Young leave nest 26-28 days after hatching, may remain with parents 2-3 months.
Mostly ants and other insects, also fruits, nuts. Carpenter ants may be up to 60% of diet; also eats other ants (rarely digging into anthills on ground), termites, larvae of wood-boring beetles, other insects. About one-quarter of the diet may be wild fruits, berries, and nuts.
Territory is defended with loud drumming and ringing calls. Courtship displays include spreading wings (showing off white wing patch), raising crest, swinging head back and forth, gliding display flight. At prospective nest site, both sexes may tap or drum on wood. Nest site is a cavity in a dead tree or in dead branch of a live tree, sometimes in utility pole, usually 15-80' above ground. Generally makes a new cavity each year, with both sexes helping to excavate.
Audubon’s scientists have used 140 million bird observations and sophisticated climate models to project how climate change will affect this bird’s range in the future.
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Every spring, birders at the American Museum of Natural History vie to see the most birds in Central Park. This year, competing from their quarantine spots around the world brought unexpected benefits.
Available on Costco.com through June 21
Both the Pileated Woodpecker and Northern Flicker can eat hundreds of the insects at a time.
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