Imagine this – a woodpecker as large as a crow. That’s a big woodpecker and it lives in North America. It’s called the Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) and it has the distinction of being the biggest woodpecker north of the border. You may remember the cartoon character, Woody Woodpecker, which was created by Walter Lanz in the 1940s. Woody was fashioned after a Pileated Woodpecker. They have a wild call that may have been the basis for Woody’s laugh.

These woodpeckers can be found in woodlands with big trees in Canada. In the United States they live on parts of the west coast and eastern areas having large trees like oaks, sycamores, elms, and pine trees. They prefer mature woodlands.

Their signature rectangular drillings are found on trees where they drill out large nests mostly on dead trees. They often excavate new nesting holes every year.

Their drumming is broadcast over wide areas as it sound like someone striking wood with a heavy instrument, like a large hammer.

The Pileated Woodpecker is also known as the “Rain Crow” and “Indian Hen”.

One of the most extraordinary habits of the Pileated Woodpecker is that if their eggs fall out of the nest, they will gather them up and move them to another nest. Other birds rarely do this. Pileated Woodpeckers normally lay a clutch of four eggs; both the make and female help incubate the eggs.

The word “Pileated” means to have a crest covering the pilium or head. They are about 15 to 17 inches long.

The Pileated Woodpecker is often mistaken for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker that many believe is extinct.

It loves to feed on carpenter ants and beetles and it will drill out large rectangular holes in trees to search for these insects that it grabs with its Velcro like tongue.

This bird stays put in its original habitat and does not migrate.

More information on woodpeckers found here