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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] Pileated woodpeckers
  • Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:58:35 -0500

A swooping flash of red, white and black interrupted the morning muse. It landed on the old oak that dominates the area in front of the house. A few rips at the lower bark answered my question of why patches of bark had recently fallen. That's okay with me. This hungry tree cleaner is welcome to all the beetle larvae it chooses to excavate. When done it is welcome to dine on any carpenter ants it might find. It will have to wait for next year to sample the apples.

This was a young male, only about nine inches long. Mom and Dad are five or six inches longer. They nest in the area behind the shop and are none too happy about all the clearing and excavation work going on back there. Of course that is my projection. More likely they are simply programmed to scold anything messing around in their territory. Maybe they think loud and sometimes incessant kuk-kuk-kuks will drive me away. Their calls bring to thought the high-pitched laugh of a crazy old hag.

For those not acquainted, Dryocopus pileatus has a predominately black body, wears a red beret pulled low over the eyes and has white stripes on its neck and black and white stripes on its face. Less easily seen are the yellow bristly feathers over its nostrils that protect from wood chips. Long, sticky tongue, long, sharp pointed bill, yellow eyes. Males and females are similar but males have a red forehead while females have a gray to yellowish brown forehead. As is common in birds and we mammals, males are prettier.

The correct pronunciation of pileated is to apply the long sound to the first three vowels. It's more fun to say pillyated, which rhymes with filly-gated, which is appropriate because these guys do the work of many lesser peckers. I first became entranced with this horse of a bird many years ago. There was a large cross-bred oak in the front yard. A half-dead limb of perhaps a foot in diameter received frequent attention from the Woody Woodpecker design inspiration. Great, large chunks of wood flew to the ground as if from a mad arborist chainsawing his way to daylight. Never had I seen a woodpecker peck out such obstacles in his search for breakfast.

The youngster I saw this morning will have to move on. Pileated pairs, which are strongly monogamous, presumed mated for life, require from 127 to 384 acres of territory here in Missouri, depending on forest density. In northeastern and western Oregon, studies found they need over a thousand acres. Populations have increased in the last few decades especially in the eastern half of the country due to old farmland reverting to forest. They keep the same home territory but make a new nest cavity each year, so need an ample supply of large trees suitable for major excavation. No more than one brood per year of one to eight naked kids are produced. I feel fortunate that they like it here at Heartwood.





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