Pileated Woodpecker | Dryocopus pileatus

Voice

The best-known sound is a loud, wild series, wuk-wuk-wuk-wuk-wuk, that rises and falls somewhat irregularly in pitch and tempo and carries far through the forest; it resembles the call of the Northern Flicker but sounds wilder and less even. It also gives single, loud kuk calls, often on taking flight. The drum is slow, deep and powerful, a resonant roll of two to three seconds, preferably on hollow trunks.

Identification

A large woodpecker of 40 to 49 centimetres, the size of a crow, with a mostly black body, a large, pointed red crest, a white stripe from the base of the bill across the cheek and down the side of the neck, and a white chin. In flight large white patches at the base of the primaries and white underwing coverts stand out. The male has a red forehead and a red moustachial stripe; in the female forehead and moustache are black. The flight is powerful and slightly undulating, with deep, irregular beats.

Confusion species

American Crow is of similar size in flight, but is entirely black, without white underwings or a red crest. Ivory-billed Woodpecker of the south-east, considered probably extinct, was larger still and had an ivory-white bill, a white shield on the back of the perched bird and a broad white trailing edge to the wing; reports of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers almost always turn out to be Pileated Woodpeckers. Other woodpeckers in the region are much smaller and lack the combination of black body and red crest.

Habitat

Mature deciduous, mixed and coniferous forest with large trees and plenty of dead wood, from hemlock forests in the north-west to cypress swamps in the south-east. It can also manage in younger forest, provided there are large dead trees or plenty of fallen, rotting wood, and increasingly breeds in wooded suburbs and parks. The nest is a deep cavity with an oblong entrance in a dead tree; its old cavities are reused by owls, ducks and martens.

Range and movements

Resident in southern Canada, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, and in the eastern United States to Florida and the Gulf Coast. In the west it occurs along the Pacific coast from British Columbia into California and in the northern Rocky Mountains; it is absent from the Great Plains, the dry western interior and Mexico. Two subspecies are usually recognised: the northern abieticola and the southern nominate form, which is slightly smaller.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

In old woodland look for fresh, large rectangular or oval holes low in trunks and stumps, often with a pile of wood chips beneath: that is where it has dug out carpenter ants, which make up the bulk of its diet. Stay nearby for a while and listen for the wild wuk-wuk-wuk or the heavy drumming. It now also turns up regularly at suet feeders, especially in winter.

Conservation

The IUCN rates the species as Least Concern (LC). Partners in Flight puts the population at about 2.6 million birds, and according to the Breeding Bird Survey numbers rose steadily between 1966 and 2019. After the large-scale forest clearance of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it had declined sharply in the east, but with the regrowth of the forests it has regained much ground. The removal of dead trees and fallen wood from forests and parks remains the main threat.

Scientific name

Dryocopus pileatus | (Linnaeus, 1758)

Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Picus pileatus, based on Mark Catesby's illustration and description; the type locality is South Carolina. Because the species now stands in Dryocopus, a genus introduced by Friedrich Boie in 1826, author and year are in parentheses. Dryocopus is from Greek drus 'tree' and kopos 'cutter'; pileatus is Latin for 'capped' (pileus), after the red crest.