Bird Profile
Pileated Woodpecker
The largest woodpecker in North America is a habitat bird before it is a feeder bird. If mature forest reaches your property line, suet can bring one in. If it does not, nothing will.
The short answer
- A Pileated Woodpecker is crow-sized, 16 to 19 inches (40 to 49 cm) long, black with a flaming red crest and white stripes down the neck. Nothing else in North America looks like it.
- Its signature is the excavation: deep rectangular or oblong holes in dead and dying trees, with a pile of coarse wood chips at the base.
- Carpenter ants are the core of the diet, supplemented by wood-boring beetle larvae, termites, wild fruit and nuts.
- Pairs need large territories of mature forest with big dead trees, often in the range of 150 to 200 acres, so no feeder will conjure one into an isolated suburban lot.
- Where habitat is right, a large tail-prop suet cage mounted on a trunk or pole is the setup that works, mostly in winter.
At a glance
- Scientific name
- Dryocopus pileatus
- Length
- 15.8 to 19.3 in (40 to 49 cm)
- Wingspan
- 26 to 29.5 in (66 to 75 cm)
- Weight
- 8.8 to 12.3 oz (250 to 350 g)
- Range
- Forested eastern US and Canada, northern Rockies, Pacific Northwest and northern California. Year-round resident.
- Favorite foods
- Carpenter ants and beetle larvae; suet and peanuts at feeders
- Best feeder
- Large tail-prop suet cage or suet log on a pole or trunk
- At feeders
- Irregular, mostly winter, only where mature forest is nearby
The Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is the largest woodpecker in North America, roughly the size of a crow at 16 to 19 inches (40 to 49 cm) long, dull black with bold white neck stripes and a pointed red crest. When one crosses a clearing it looks prehistoric, and the noise it makes working a dead trunk carries a long way through the woods.
It is also the backyard woodpecker you are least able to command. The other four common feeder woodpeckers respond to a suet cage. This one responds to forest: a pair holds a large territory of mature trees, and if your property does not fall inside one, nothing on a pole will change that.
This profile covers identification, how to read the rectangular holes it leaves, whether your yard has a realistic chance, the feeder setup for a bird of this weight, and why the cavities it abandons matter to a dozen other species.
How to identify a Pileated Woodpecker#
Size settles it. This bird is three to four times the bulk of a Red-bellied Woodpecker and noticeably larger than a Northern Flicker. In flight the wingspan reaches about 29 inches (75 cm).
The body is sooty black. A white stripe runs from the bill down the side of the neck onto the shoulder, and the underwings flash large white panels that are far more obvious in flight than at rest. The crest is bright red and swept back into a point.
Males have a red stripe running from the bill along the cheek and red covering the forehead to the crest. Females have a black cheek stripe and a gray-brown forehead, with red confined to the rear crest. The bill is long, chisel-tipped and dark.
Two sounds identify it without a view. The call is a loud, ringing series similar to a flicker's but deeper, louder and irregular in pace, often rising and falling. The drum is slow, powerful, and trails off at the end, sounding like someone striking a hollow log with a mallet.
It is not an Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Nearly every reported Ivory-billed sighting is a Pileated. A Pileated has a black back with no white saddle at rest, a dark bill, and white underwing panels. It is the correct answer in the eastern US in every practical case.
The rectangular holes are the real field mark#
You will find the excavations more often than the bird. They are unmistakable: oblong to nearly rectangular openings, several inches across and sometimes a foot (30 cm) or more tall, chiseled into dead or dying trunks and limbs. Beneath them lies a scatter of coarse chips, some of them the size of a thumb.
The bird is cutting into carpenter ant galleries. It hears or feels the colony inside, then removes wood in slabs rather than in the fine sawdust that smaller woodpeckers produce. Deep excavations can go far enough into a dying trunk to weaken it.
That sequence matters if you are worried about your trees. The ants arrive first, in wood that is already rotting; the woodpecker follows the ants. Working the tree is a symptom, not the cause.
Where they live, and whether you have a chance#
Pileateds need mature forest with large trees, standing dead trunks and fallen logs. They use eastern deciduous and mixed woods, southern bottomland forest, the northern Rockies, and the wet conifer forests of the Pacific Northwest and northern California.
They tolerate suburbs better than they used to, provided the mature canopy is connected. Wooded parks, ravines, greenbelts, river corridors and older neighborhoods with big oaks all support them. Pairs hold large year-round territories, often in the range of 150 to 200 acres, and both birds stay on that ground through winter.
The honest test is this. Stand in your yard and look for continuous mature woodland within a few hundred yards. If you can see it, a suet feeder has a real chance over a season or two. If your nearest woods is a mile away across open subdivision, it does not.
Do not expect a feeder to override habitat
This is the species where the usual advice fails. Feeding does not create territory. A yard without large trees nearby can hold chickadees, finches and Downy Woodpeckers indefinitely and never see a Pileated, no matter what you put out.
What Pileated Woodpeckers eat#
Carpenter ants dominate. Depending on season and location they can make up the majority of the diet, taken from galleries inside standing dead wood, stumps and fallen logs. Wood-boring beetle larvae and termites fill much of the rest.
Plant food is seasonal and genuinely important in fall and winter: wild grapes, sumac, dogwood, elderberry, hackberry, poison ivy berries, blackberries and, in some regions, acorns and beechnuts. Planting fruiting natives helps here more than any seed does, as covered in native plants for birds.
At feeders they take suet and, less often, peanuts and sunflower hearts.
| Food | Taken? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Plain rendered suet | Readily | The most reliable feeder food for this species |
| Nut and peanut butter suet cakes | Readily | High fat, good for winter |
| Peanuts | Sometimes | Whole or halved, from a sturdy tray |
| Sunflower hearts | Occasionally | Usually taken from a large platform, not a tube |
| Nyjer, millet, mixed seed | No | Wrong food, wrong feeder for the bird |
The feeder setup for a 12-ounce woodpecker#
Everything about the setup has to allow for weight and length. A bird up to 12 ounces (350 g) with a 19-inch (49 cm) body cannot use a small hanging cage, and a light hook will swing wildly the moment it lands.
- A large suet cage with an extended tail prop, screwed to a trunk or mounted rigidly on a stout pole at 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 m). Options are compared in suet feeders.
- A suet log, which suits them particularly well because it mimics a trunk. Plans are in DIY suet log feeder.
- Suet grade matters in warm weather. Raw fat goes rancid quickly above roughly 80°F (27°C); the suet guide covers no-melt cakes and summer handling.
- Rigid mounting over hanging. The tradeoffs are set out in poles, hooks, trees or deck mounts.
Visits are irregular. A Pileated may appear every morning for a week in January and then not be seen for a month. Winter is the best season, and winter bird feeding covers the wider cold-weather setup that keeps a yard busy while you wait.
Watch for the arrival, not the bird
Pileateds usually announce themselves. If you hear a loud ringing call or a deep, resonant drum from nearby woods in late winter, a pair is on territory within earshot, and a suet cage put up that week has a much better chance than one hung on speculation in July.
Nesting and why other species depend on it#
Pairs excavate a new nest cavity nearly every year, typically 15 to 80 feet (4.5 to 24 m) up in a large dead or dying tree. The entrance is oblong rather than round, and the cavity may be 10 to 24 inches (25 to 60 cm) deep. Clutches run 3 to 5 white eggs, one brood a year.
Those abandoned cavities are the reason the bird counts as a keystone species. Wood Ducks, Eastern Screech-Owls, American Kestrels, bats, flying squirrels, swifts and smaller cavity nesters all use holes a Pileated made and left. Nothing else in eastern forests carves openings that large. Keeping dead wood standing where it is safe to do so, as described in snags, dead wood and leaf litter, supports that whole chain.
Population and outlook#
The species declined badly during the heavy logging of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when mature forest was stripped across the East. It has recovered substantially as second-growth forest matured, and populations have been broadly stable to increasing in recent decades.
The continuing constraint is large dead wood. A managed landscape that removes every snag and standing dead trunk offers no nest sites and little food, even where the canopy looks impressive.
What actually helps#
- Leave standing dead trees wherever they threaten nothing.
- Leave fallen logs and stumps to rot rather than grinding them out.
- Mount a large tail-prop suet cage rigidly at 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 m), stocked from November through March.
- Plant fruiting natives such as dogwood, elderberry and wild grape.
- Provide water. Large birds use a deep, sturdy bird bath, especially in dry spells.
- Judge the result over a season, not a week. Where habitat is right, patience is usually the missing ingredient. Where it is wrong, the broader tactics in how to attract woodpeckers will still bring you the other four species.
Frequently asked questions#
How do I attract a Pileated Woodpecker to my yard?
Only if mature forest with large dead trees is within a few hundred yards. Where it is, mount a large suet cage with a tail prop on a trunk or a stout pole at 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 m), keep it stocked through winter, and leave any safe standing dead wood on your property. Where it is not, no food or feeder design will produce one, because the bird needs a territory measured in hundreds of acres.
What are the big rectangular holes in my tree?
Almost certainly Pileated Woodpecker excavations. They are distinctively oblong or rectangular, several inches across, often deep enough to see into, and there will be a scatter of coarse chips at the base of the trunk. The bird is following carpenter ant galleries. The tree was already infested before the woodpecker arrived, so the holes are a symptom rather than the cause of the decline.
Do Pileated Woodpeckers eat suet?
Yes, and they will use a feeder readily where the surrounding habitat suits them. Plain rendered suet and nut cakes both work. Because the bird weighs up to 12 ounces (350 g) and is nearly 19 inches (49 cm) long, use a large cage with an extended tail prop and mount it rigidly rather than hanging it from a light branch.
Is a Pileated Woodpecker the same as an Ivory-billed Woodpecker?
No. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is almost certainly extinct, with no accepted record for decades, and nearly every reported sighting turns out to be a Pileated. A Pileated shows a black back at rest with white only on the neck stripes and the underwings, and it has a dark bill. Assume Pileated.
Do Pileated Woodpeckers damage healthy trees?
Rarely. They target trees already carrying carpenter ants or wood-boring beetle larvae, which means dead, dying or internally rotting wood. A tree being worked hard by a Pileated is usually a tree that was structurally compromised beforehand. The exception is that they will drill into wooden siding and utility poles that harbor insects or sound hollow.