Tag: Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus)

Woodpeckers And Concussions

March 22, 2026

A Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus), pounding on a tree quite a distance away, yet making as much noise as a jackhammer. Hammering on a tree at up to 20 times per second. That makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

Woodpeckers hammer on trees in search of food, to create a nesting hole, or to lure a mate. They’re well equipped for this action. They have small brains which are snuggly packed into their skulls which protects the brain from being bashed around. Also they have specialized skull structures, very strong neck muscles, and a long tongue (one third of their body length) that wraps around the brain, acting like a seatbelt to ease the impact forces.

Impressive.

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Sign Of A Pileated Woodpecker

November 21, 2025

This morning on my way down the mountain I saw a woodpecker that I often see, a Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus). The largest woodpecker in North America. About the size of a crow. Measuring in at 16 to 19 inches long, with a wingspan of 26 to 30 inches, weighing about 8.8 to 12.3 ounces.

Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) drill holes in trees searching for Carpenter Ants (Camponotus) and wood-boring beetle larvae. Trees they prefer have soft wood, or are dead or dying. Those holes, often large, rectangular or oval, are easy to spot.

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One Grand Woodpecker

The Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is an impressive creature. Nearly the size of a Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos). I have fond memories of one landing, and working on, a tree within a few feet of my bedroom window when I lived in North Arlington many years ago. It sounded like a human, up in the tree, pounding on it with a heavy hammer.

This Woodpecker is the largest Woodpecker on our continent, unless of course, you still consider the Ivory Billed Woodpecker to still be alive and well.

The ivory-billed woodpecker is a woodpecker native to the bottomland hardwood forests and temperate coniferous forests of the Southern United States and Cuba. The US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing it as extinct September 29, 2021.