Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus): Facts and Habitat

Appearance: how to recognize a pileated woodpecker

The pileated woodpecker is mostly black, with a pointed red crest on the back of the head. A bold white stripe runs from the base of the bill down the side of the neck, and another white line crosses the face above the cheek, giving the head a striped, zebra-like look. The bill is long, straight and dark gray, and the eye is pale.

Males and females are easy to tell apart at close range. The male’s red reaches all the way to the forehead, and he has a red “mustache” stripe behind the bill. The female’s forehead is grayish brown and her mustache is black. Young birds look like adults but have a shorter, paler crest.

In flight the bird shows large white patches under the wings and a white crescent at the base of the flight feathers on top. Its flight is strong and slightly undulating, with irregular wingbeats, more like a crow’s than the deep bounces of smaller woodpeckers.

How big is a pileated woodpecker?

This is a big bird, close to an American crow in length. Northern birds are larger than those in the Southeast.

Males average slightly heavier than females, at about 300 g (11 oz) against about 256 g (9 oz). Worldwide, only a few woodpeckers are larger, including the Eurasian black woodpecker and the great slaty woodpecker of Southeast Asia.

The only North American birds that could be confused with it are two very large relatives that are probably extinct: the ivory-billed woodpecker of the Southeast and Cuba, and the imperial woodpecker of Mexico. Reports of ivory-bills are often pileateds seen briefly, as explained in is the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct?

Habitat and range

The pileated woodpecker lives across southern Canada and the boreal forest from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, throughout most of the eastern United States from the Great Lakes and New England to Florida and eastern Texas, and in the Pacific Northwest south through the forests of northern California. It is absent from the treeless Great Plains and the dry Southwest.

It needs large trees, living and dead. Mature deciduous and mixed forests, conifer forests, river bottoms and cypress and hardwood swamps all suit it. It was once thought to need vast stretches of old-growth forest, but in recent decades it has adapted to smaller woodlots, wooded parks and leafy suburbs, as long as there are enough big and dying trees for feeding and nesting.

Where and how to see one

Pileated woodpeckers are shy, but they leave plenty of clues. Look for fresh rectangular or oval holes in dead trees and stumps, often near the base, with piles of large, pale wood chips on the ground below. Listen for the loud laughing call and the deep, rolling drum, which can carry hundreds of meters through a quiet forest.

The best places are mature woods with lots of standing dead trees, river bottoms and swamps, and large wooded parks. Early morning in late winter and spring, when pairs are drumming and calling most, gives the best chance of a sighting. In winter, leafless trees make the birds much easier to spot.

Diet: what do pileated woodpeckers eat?

The pileated woodpecker is mainly an insectivore, and its favorite food is the carpenter ant, which lives in tunnels inside dead or damaged wood. The bird also eats wood-boring beetle larvae, termites and other insects, and adds fruit, berries and nuts, including wild grapes, dogwood and even the berries of poison ivy, especially in fall and winter.

Its feeding signs are unmistakable. To reach an ant colony, a pileated woodpecker hacks out large, deep, roughly rectangular holes, sometimes 30 cm (1 ft) or more long, throwing big wood chips onto the ground below. Once the galleries are exposed, it uses its long, sticky, barb-tipped tongue to lick up ants and their larvae. Read more in how long is a woodpecker’s tongue?

It also feeds low on stumps and fallen logs, which often hold insects, and it may forage on the ground. In harsh winters, some birds visit suet feeders near woodland.

Behavior: drumming, calls and territory

Pileated woodpeckers are usually seen alone or in pairs. A pair stays together on a year-round territory and defends it against other pileateds with displays of the crest and wings, chases and calls.

Like other woodpeckers, they drum to communicate: rapid bursts of blows on a resonant hollow tree or branch. The pileated’s drum is loud, deep and relatively slow, often speeding up and fading at the end, and it carries a long way through the forest. Drumming advertises the territory and helps partners keep in touch. The species also has a loud, wild, laughing call, a series of “cuk-cuk-cuk” notes that rises and falls.

Why woodpeckers can hammer wood all day without hurting themselves is covered in why don’t woodpeckers get headaches?, and the different reasons they peck in why do woodpeckers peck wood?

Reproduction and life cycle

Pairs usually stay together for life. In early spring, the pair (mostly the male) excavates a new nest cavity each year, usually in a dead tree or dead branch, high above the ground. The entrance is often oblong rather than perfectly round, and the cavity below it is deep and unlined except for a bed of wood chips.

The female lays 3–5 white eggs, most often four. Both parents incubate them for about 12–16 days. The chicks hatch naked and helpless and are fed by both adults, which bring them insects by regurgitation. The young leave the nest after about four weeks and stay with their parents for several more months, learning where to find food.

The pileated woodpecker as a forest engineer

Pileated woodpeckers are a keystone species of many North American forests because of the holes they leave behind. They use a nest cavity for only one season, and their old nests and roost holes become homes for many animals that cannot dig their own.

Wood ducks, common goldeneyes and hooded mergansers nest in them, as do owls such as the barred owl and screech owls. Flying squirrels, bats, martens and raccoons may move in, and smaller birds come to feed on insects in the opened wood. Their feeding also speeds up the breakdown of dead trees, returning nutrients to the soil.

Relatives in Europe and elsewhere

The pileated woodpecker belongs to a small group of large, crested woodpeckers. Its closest relatives fill the same “big woodpecker” role in other parts of the world:

European visitors who know the black woodpecker will recognize the pileated’s loud calls, big oval holes and habit of feeding on ants low on trunks and stumps. Some taxonomists place the American species in a separate genus, Hylatomus, but most current checklists keep it in Dryocopus.

Relationship with people

Most people are delighted to see such a striking bird, and the pileated woodpecker is a favorite of birdwatchers and nature photographers. Its comeback in suburban areas means many people now meet it in their own neighborhoods.

Conflicts are occasional. The birds sometimes dig into wooden utility poles, sheds or siding, especially where carpenter ants have moved in, and a pileated hole in a pole can be large enough to weaken it. Because the species is legally protected, utility companies and homeowners deal with such problems by repairing damage and dealing with the insects rather than harming the birds.

Lifespan, predators and threats

Most pileated woodpeckers live for a few years; the oldest known wild bird, identified by its leg band, was nearly 13 years old. Adults have few predators, but they can be taken by Cooper’s hawks, northern goshawks, red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks, eagles and owls such as the great horned owl. Martens, weasels, squirrels, gray foxes and rat snakes raid nests for eggs and chicks.

When a hawk appears, a pileated woodpecker often hides behind the trunk or spirals up it, keeping the tree between itself and the hunter.

Conservation status

The IUCN Red List classifies the pileated woodpecker as Least Concern, and its population is increasing. It declined sharply in the 18th and 19th centuries as eastern forests were cleared, then recovered as farmland returned to woodland and trees in parks and suburbs grew large. Bird surveys show steady increases since the 1960s in the Northeast and around the Great Lakes, and the total population is estimated at roughly 2.6 million birds.

The species is protected in the United States under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and in Canada under the Migratory Birds Convention Act. Its main long-term need is forests that keep plenty of big old trees and standing dead wood.

Myths and facts

Myth: woodpeckers kill healthy trees. Pileated woodpeckers mostly excavate wood that is already dead or infested with ants, so their holes are usually a sign of an existing problem rather than its cause.

Myth: Woody Woodpecker is a pileated woodpecker. Partly true. Cartoonist Walter Lantz is believed to have based Woody’s look on the pileated woodpecker, while the famous laugh is often linked to the acorn woodpecker.

Fact: the name means “capped”. Pileatus is Latin for wearing a cap, after the red crest, and Dryocopus comes from Greek words meaning “tree cutter”.