Dan's Feathursday Feature: Pileated Woodpecker

I think it started with marshmallow sticks. Our family went camping frequently, and after I got my first jackknife when I was nine years old, we never had a campsite without at least a dozen long, thin sticks, each whittled to a fine point, to be used for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows and whatever else would hold still long enough to be skewered. When I needed something more challenging than putting a point on a stick, my uncle taught me to whittle fishing lures—small bass spoons that looked cool but probably never caught anything. I worked up to simple bird shapes and other animal figures. You could always tell where I had been sitting by the pile of wood shavings I left behind.

Then my brother and I would get the hatchet and start cutting firewood. We would challenge each other to see who could chop through a log with fewer strokes. Chips flew all over the campsite, and by the time we were finished with any log there was more tinder than firewood. The size and number of woodchips was a measure of our prowess.

Mine was not a deprived and depraved childhood. This was just what we did to pass the time before the age of the computer, and I share this bit of family history by way of establishing my bona fides. I know a thing or two about woodchips.

I don’t hold a candle to the Pileated Woodpecker.

You want to see woodchips? Come with me into a forest where a Pileated Woodpecker has set up camp. There, look at that big hardwood other there. Huge, rectangular holes drilled deep into the heart of the tree—the base of the trunk carpeted in silver dollar sized chunks of the wood that once filled those holes. Forget jackknife and hatchet. This tree looks like someone had at it with a jackhammer. There was some serious chopping done here. I know how much time and energy it takes to convert xylem to chips with a two-pound hatchet at the end of an arm. This arboreal excavating was accomplished by a two-inch beak attached to the head of a three-quarter pound bird. Absolutely amazing!

Walk around the tree and pick up a handful of the chips. You’ll note that some will be hard and brittle, but many will be soft and punky. The bird that made these holes—and the chips—was not chopping firewood, nor trying to demonstrate its prowess. It had one of two things in mind: food or shelter. From the shape of these holes, it looks like it chose this tree because it discovered pathways into the tree’s heartwood, pathways created by scrumptious carpenter ants. It slashed away chunks of ant-softened wood and followed those insect pathways, and followed them, and followed them, lapping up every ant on the way until it ran out of ants or ran out of tree.

This makes me feel a bit better about my hatchet skills. After all, I was chopping firewood, which was dry and hard. (Humor me, please. I don’t fancy being outdone by a woodpecker, even a Pileated Woodpecker.)

If you have a bit more time, won’t you sit with me for a while at the base of this tree? The hole-maker is bound to be back before too long. In fact, I hear it now. A loud, fast staccato cuk-cuk-cuk-cuk-cuk coming from the trees along that ridge. Put the binoculars down; you won’t need them. This bird is huge, about the size of a crow. Here it comes, its starkly contrasting black and white plumage accented by a shocking red crown that stands out even before it plants itself with a loud thud on the trunk of that leafless yellow birch. You can see from the holes in that tree that the bird is not visiting it for the first time. It cocks its head, one eye away from the tree to watch for predators, the other peering into the holes in search of carpenter ants, or anything else with six or eight legs. With a jerk-like hop it moves from hole to hole until it stops cold, cocks back that two-inch beak and commences to hammering.

I said hammering, not pecking. If you have never seen a Pileated Woodpecker in action, you are in for a treat. The bird goes at that tree like a thing possessed. Now impact drill, now crowbar, the beak seems to be driving the woodpecker, not the other way around. Chips fly as the hole gradually expands. Occasionally the bird stops hammering, does some prying, and then licks up the insects that have been exposed. Then back to the hammering. Whew!

Unlike my brother and me and our hatchet, the Pileated Woodpecker is not driven by testosterone to wreak havoc on the tree. It’s all about survival. The food is there, and the Pileated Woodpecker has the right tool and the right technique to get at it. It’s as simple as that.

The bird is no fool, either. If it can get by without having to expend the huge amount of energy needed to fuel its jackhammer bill and strong neck, it is all the more content. Its preferred place for foraging is a rotting log or stump, so spongy and soft it can practically be torn apart with a spoon. In fact, there it goes now, to that three-feet-wide stump, where its multi-purpose beak is now pickaxe and shovel. As it throws aside big chunks of the stump to expose the protein rich termites and carpenter ants within, the Pileated Woodpecker fulfils its role in nature’s circle by reducing the once mighty tree to the humus from which it sprouted over a century ago.

Ooops, I gesture as I describe the scene and startle the skittish Pileated Woodpecker. It flies off and disappears as magically as when it appeared twenty minutes ago. It’s spring, and it’s safe to say that besides seeking food, this woodpecker also has procreation in mind. It needs undisturbed space and time, so it can excavate a cavity in one of the dead trees, where it can raise a family. It asks nothing from us except the common sense to leave it—and its forest—alone. It’s time we pack up our jackknives and hatchet, break camp and take our leave.

Dan's Feathursday Feature is a regular contribution to the COS blog featuring the thoughts, insights and pictures of Chicago birder, Dan Lory on birds of the Chicago region.