I’ve heard and seen the pileated woodpecker at the arboretum throughout the winter. Both the male and female have red crests. The red on the male includes the forecrown and he has a red mustache mark. It is a crow-sized bird. Its length is 15.8-19.3 in (40-49 cm).
It has a varied diet, but its primary food is carpenter ants. It will make deep holes in trees to get to the tunnels of these ants or woodboring beetles and termites. A woodpecker’s tongue is part of a fascinating system of small bones and muscles that wrap around the back and top of the skull all the way around to its forehead. This allows it to extend its tongue in search of prey.
In What It’s Like to Be a Bird, David Sibley writes, “The long tongue has a barbed and sticky tip, and tiny muscles that allow the bird to bend the tip of the tongue in any direction, so it can follow twisting tunnels, trap prey against walls, and pry insects and larvae out of their hiding places deep inside a tree.”
Click the link to All About Birds to listen to their calls:
Pileated Woodpecker Sounds
